The Man on the Balcony (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

The chilling third novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by the internationally renowned crime writing duo Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Martin Beck investigating a string of child murders.In the once peaceful parks of Stockholm, a killer is stalking young girls and disposing their bodies. The city is on edge, and an undercurrent of fear has gripped its residents. Martin Beck, now a superintendent, has two possible witnesses: a silent, stone-cold mugger and a mute three year old boy. With the likelihood of another murder growing as each day passes, the police force work night and day. But their efforts have offered little insight into the methodology of the killer. Then a distant memory resurfaces in Beck's mind, and he may just have the break he needs.

Customer Reviews:

Wahloo and Sjowall are unsurpassed masters!

By A Customer - February 18, 2001

The Martin Beck stories written by the gifted husband and wife writers, Wahloo and Sjowall are well written and will hold your attention. Guaranteed. These are crime novels with a social conscience of the 60's era. The authors bemoan the disintegration of the Swedish and western society, where everything is worse than it used to be. Martin Beck is a cop who is no villain, and who does his job because somebody has to do it. We look at the evils of the 60's society almost with nostalgia today. If only today's society could be as bad as the one Martin Beck had to face every day. Had he been able to see into the future, Martin Beck would have indeed been thankful that he didn't have to live in 2001. When I first bought the Black Lizard edition in a Berkeley bookstore years ago, I must confess it was strictly for the slick cover of a dead man with a face in a spaghetti plate (in "Murder At the Savoy"). Soon I had to have all ten of the Wahloo-Sjowall books. I still have them, and... read more

A Hero for Our Time

By A Customer - January 24, 2001

Serial-killer novels with the detective in hot pursuit are a dime a dozen... This is a primary source for the genre, and a literary work of the first magnitude. One of those rare books with the ring of truth, making it all the more terrifying... The protagonist Martin Beck and his colleagues are in a league of their own, among the most compelling characters in modern fiction. The Martin Beck mysteries as a whole dwarf almost any other literary achievement of the last fifty years. If you've made it this far in this review, do yourself a favor and read one of these books. You won't regret it.

Decent thriller

By daveklein222 - September 27, 2002

The second book in the Martin Beck detective series. ... the emphasis is more on the police procedural than the social and political commentary which would dominate the authors' later works. The crime in this one is again sexual in nature, although even more barbaric: the serial rape and strangulation of little girls, whose bodies subsequently turn up in parks all over Stockholm. Beck is on the case (with his trusty partner Kollberg), and the two thoroughly investigage every lead, but to no avail. The tension in the book is simple, but palpable: ... As the detectives begin to feel the heat from their superiors and the public, the killer prepares to strike again... And then the anticlimactic ending. No car chases, no shoot-outs, no ingenious breakthroughs, no sudden flashes of psychic insight: just simple police work and a healthy infusion of old-fashioned dumb luck.One of the better novels in the series, again to be praised for its attention to details and realism.