The Locked Room

The Locked Room
Michael Connelly

Maj Sjowall

Per Wahloo

The eighth classic instalment in this genre-changing series of novels starring Detective Inspector Martin Beck. This new edition has an introduction by Michael Connolly.In one part of town, a woman robs a bank. In another, a corpse is found shot through the heart in a room locked from within, with no firearm in sight. Although the two incidents appear unrelated, Detective Inspector Martin Beck believes otherwise, and solving the mystery acquires the utmost importance. Haunted by a near-fatal bullet wound and trying to recover from the break-up of his unhappy marriage, Beck throws himself into the case to escape from the prison that his own life has come to resemble.Written in the 1960s, these masterpieces are the work of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo – a husband and wife team from Sweden. The ten novels follow the fortunes of the detective Martin Beck, whose enigmatic, taciturn character has inspired countless other policemen in crime fiction. The novels can be read separately, but do follow a chronological order, so the reader can become familiar with the characters and develop a loyalty to the series. Each book will have a new introduction in order to help bring these books to a new audience.

MAJ SJÖWALL

AND PER WAHLÖÖ

The Locked Room

Translated from the Swedish by Paul Britten Austin

Copyright (#u3bf999e2-49f3-5162-8699-d15604ac1633)

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk (http://www.4thEstate.co.uk)

This ebook first published by Harper Perennial in 2009

This 4th Estate edition published in 2016

This translation first published by Random House Inc, New York, in 1973

Originally published in Sweden by P. A. Norstedt & Söners Forlag

Copyright text © Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö 1972

Copyright introduction © Michael Connelly 2007

Cover photograph © Shutterstock

PS Section © Richard Shephard 2007

PS™ is a trademark of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors' imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007439188

Ebook Edition © 1972 ISBN: 9780007323456

Version: 2016-03-30

From the reviews of the Martin Beck series (#u3bf999e2-49f3-5162-8699-d15604ac1633):

‘First class’

Daily Telegraph

‘One of the most authentic, gripping and profound collections of police procedural ever accomplished’

MICHAEL CONNELLY

‘Hauntingly effective storytelling’

New York Times

‘There's just no question about it: the reigning King and Queen of mystery fiction are Maj Sjöwall and her husband Per Wahlöö’

The National Observer

‘Sjöwall/Wahlöö are the best writers of police procedural in the world’

Birmingham Post

Contents

Cover (#u8b154572-8c23-52ba-8e56-53afa5d5aab7)

Title Page (#ud232a6ff-b8ef-5ebf-a2e3-e92942cef6ee)

Copyright (#ue87a280c-2437-5617-aac6-63378803b198)

Praise (#uc7a6aa39-7632-5bca-a4cd-da14de5bbd2c)

Introduction (#u630f9362-c465-5d44-a701-1fc99d007819)

Chapter 1 (#u6ade2d19-465e-5c90-9f34-36a737a4e7a7)

Chapter 2 (#u81c74c6e-8419-5c2b-bb70-c3524fc526d0)

Chapter 3 (#u7a2b6602-1b61-5847-8e4e-d55292435110)

Chapter 4 (#u6cc7f5f5-98b7-5a71-9c7e-f13135bacd09)

Chapter 5 (#ude0610f1-610b-5b64-b265-27a683f21293)