The Abominable Man

The Abominable Man
Maj Sjowall

Per Wahloo

The seventh classic instalment in this genre-changing series of novels featuring Detective Inspector Martin Beck.On a quiet night a high-ranking police officer, Nyland, is slaughtered in his hospital bed, brutally massacred with a bayonet. It's not hard to find people with a motive to kill him; in fact the problem for Detective Inspector Martin Beck is how to narrow the list down to one suspect. But as he investigates Nyland's murder he must confront whether he is willing to risk his life for his job.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 Abominable Man

Translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate

Copyright (#u5e30c45d-08ae-50fd-af46-5ecc8877180e)

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 1972

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

Copyright text © Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö 1971

Copyright introduction © Arne Dahl 2009

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 nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 e-books.

Source ISBN: 9780007439171

Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007323449

Version: 2016-03-30

Praise (#u5e30c45d-08ae-50fd-af46-5ecc8877180e)

From the reviews of the Martin Beck series:

‘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 (#uc6823aeb-c7a8-5a40-b8f1-8306a5733803)

Title Page (#u20fce805-5197-594a-87ae-a965ae89e146)

Copyright (#u9d4483f7-2a2e-5873-9e84-b2bafb8d963f)

Praise (#u8fed441c-e3e8-5535-a7b5-ef549cc178c8)

Introduction (#u618b4762-0d22-57a2-9db2-ce94bfd313ca)

Chapter 1 (#ulink_bea96f50-d650-52ef-97bb-6765f933eab9)

Chapter 2 (#u3c1e1b6d-cd7b-553a-b117-6742628bf788)

Chapter 3 (#u57b583fb-2dbe-5ac3-9722-403c056dab17)

Chapter 4 (#u3f1ccc01-5988-57ef-a889-61c2579b63ca)