Reading: Sjowall and Wahloo
Once in a while you come across anothe writer or reader who loves the work of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo and it’s always a nice moment to find you’re not alone.
Sjowall and Wahloo (apols for the lack of of umlauts, btw, thanks tumblr) wrote a series of crime books in the 1960s starring detective Martin Beck. Beck as a character was one of the first ordinary police heroes. Not for him the uber intelligence of a Sherlock Holmes or a Hercules Poirot, but instead the sheer slog of investigative police work. Which may make the books sound a little dull but they are anything but: tight, sparse, beautifully structured and rich with reality.
As well as writing one of the first police proecdural series, Sjowall and Wahloo were also instrumental in adding a political layer to crime writing — staunchly left wing, part of the aim of the books was to capture Swedish society as they saw it. This political slant has long been a feature of many a Scandinavian crime writer since, everyone from Henning Mankell to Stieg Larsson.
And of course, Sjowall and Wahloo famous wrote the books together: a husband and wife team who got the typewriters out once the children had gone to bed. Innovate writers, then, many times over.
@thethomasblack
