This is the first in the ten book Martin Beck series. Bleak and grim for the most part. They couldn’t resist switching to a tense thriller for the last two chapters. A friend gave us the entire set of ten – so I will be reading the rest soon. This will be the last book I complete for 2010.This book was remarkably well written. I read it after editing my own work which meant I still had a critical eye. There were very few, if any, changes I would have made – a serious contrast to the Steig Larsson books.