''The Laughing Policeman'' is a

mystery Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters *Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange'' Films * ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film * ''Mystery'' ( ...

novel by the Swedish writing duo

Maj Sjöwall Maj Sjöwall (; 25 September 1935 – 29 April 2020) was a Swedish author and translator. She is best known for her books about police detective Martin Beck. She wrote the books in collaborative work with her partner Per Wahlöö. Biograph ...

and

Per Wahlöö Per Fredrik Wahlöö (5 August 1926 – 22 June 1975) – in English translations often identified as Peter Wahloo – was a Swedish author. He is perhaps best known for the collaborative work with his partner Maj Sjöwall on a series of ten nove ...

, originally published in Sweden in 1968 as ''Den skrattande polisen'' and translated into English in 1970. It is the fourth of ten novels featuring police detective

Martin Beck Martin Beck is a fictional Swedish police detective and the main character in the ten novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, collectively titled ''The Story of a Crime''. Frequently referred to as the Martin Beck stories, all have been adapt ...

. In 1971, ''The Laughing Policeman'' won an Edgar Award for Best Novel. The 1973 American film '' The Laughing Policeman'' is a loose adaptation of the novel.

Jonathan Franzen Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel '' The Corrections'', a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Pr ...

has written an introduction for a

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. On April 2, 2020, Bertelsmann announced the completion of its purchase ...

edition of the book. He describes radically critical image of Sweden as 'comic'. Franzen's 2012 collection of essays '' Farther Away'' also contains a reprint of a 2008 piece, "On The Laughing Policeman".

Explanation of the title

The novel's title, ''The Laughing Policeman'', derives from a 1922 British song of the same name. Detective Beck, ill for a long time and with a strained marriage, has not laughed in a long time. When Beck receives the record as a Christmas gift from his daughter, Ingrid, who has noticed her father's behaviour, he does not find it funny. He only laughs at the very end of the novel, after the vindication of murdered Detective, Åke Stenström.

Plot

A gunman shoots the passengers of a bus with a sub-machine gun, killing eight people, including Detective Åke Stenström, and wounding one. After a painstaking investigation, Detective Beck and his team come to suspect that the mass killing is designed to hide the true target, Stenström himself, who was spending his free time unofficially investigating the murder of a Portuguese prostitute sixteen years earlier in an attempt to solve the case and demonstrate his skills to his older police comrades. Beck must now complete Stenstrom's work by solving the earlier murder in order to identify Stenstrom's killer.

Character development

To solve the case, Beck calls on several outsiders: Detective Richard Ullholm, a reactionary who, as a hobby, lodges formal complaints to the Parliamentary Ombudsman regarding his fellow officers; Malmö Detective Per Månsson (introduced in a previous novel), the man who can find anything; and detective Ulf Nordin, the most tenacious investigator. Åsa Torrell, Stenström's girlfriend, plays a significant emotional part in the story. After recovering from the shock of her boyfriend's murder, she states her intention to join the police.

Film adaptation

The novel was adapted to film in 1973, with Walter Matthau in the lead role. His character was renamed "Jake Martin", the action was relocated to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

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, and much of the novel's plot was altered.

Comic book adaptation

In 2011, French comics artist Martin Viot adapted ''The Laughing Policeman'' into a comic book, ''Le Policier Qui Rit''.

Sources

1968 Swedish novels 1966 Swedish novels Novels by Sjöwall and Wahlöö Swedish detective novels Edgar Award-winning works Pantheon Books books Norstedts förlag books Swedish novels adapted into films Novels adapted into comics {{1960s-mystery-novel-stub