The Man Who Went Up In Smoke

This new adventure of the dedicated Swedish policeman Martin Beck begins as a long, leisurely summer holiday is cut off by the top brass at the Foreign Office who decide to pack him off to Budapest. The mission turns out to be one of the most exasperating assignments of Beck’s entire career: the search for Alf Matsson, a well-known journalist who has vanished without a trace. On the trail of this hard-drinking Swedish newsman, Martin Beck investigates some curious East European underworld characters and — at the risk of his life — stumbles upon a flourishing international racket in which Matsson was involved. Yet even after an exhaustive search along the banks of the Danube, Martin Beck still cannot produce the missing man. Gradually some remarkably efficient policemen in Budapest —and his own hard-working colleagues at home in Stockholm — help Martin Beck convert this wild-goose chase into a coolly systematic manhunt. Finally, by relentlessly cross-examining Matsson’s bohemian drinking companions, he deduces the unexpected nature of the crimes that have taken place. With steady suspense and a vivid international background, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo have again created a forcefully realistic portrait of modern police — men stuck with the thankless, nearly dehumanizing tasks entailed in achieving even a semblance of justice in our cruel contemporary world.