Meeting Mattias - a preparatory post

When I was in Stockholm in mid-June, I was lucky enough to spend a Saturday walking through Stockholm with Mattias. When I say walking, I really mean walking - we walked for six hours! The topic of our walk was a little off-piste for Sherlockians: the Martin Beck series of ten books written by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo between 1965 and 1975. The books are best defined as police procedurals, and perfectly combine police work with the mundane humor of daily life. 

I'm writing a long blog post on our walking tour, but wanted to post a selfie Mattias took for us, and a little context for Martin Beck series - definitely worth trying, but you have to read them in order! Hopefully I'll be able to complete the Martin Beck tour post soon.

Meantime - thanks Mattias !! Luckily I should be going to Stockholm once per year so hopefully we can catch up again in 2024.

With my gracious host, Mattias Bostrom BSI, outside Eastmaninstitutet (The Eastman Institute). This was the scene of the siege and shootings in 'The Abominable Man', and the movie adaptation 'The Man On The Roof' was filmed on the same site.

The circular fountain behind us, and the steps up to the Eastmaninstitutet can be seen in this still from the 1976 movie 'The Man On The Roof' (from IMDB).

The books in question - the 'Martin Beck' series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. There were ten books in the series, as planned when the authors set out their plan. This edition from HarperCollins has the neat feature of MARTIN BECK being spelt out along the top of the spines. 

While we were walking along looking at sites, Mattias pointed to a tall building south of Solna and explained that it was a Wahloo site, but not from the Marin Beck books. He mentioned Wahloo had written a book prior to his collaboration with Sjowall called "Murder on the 31st Floor" - I've tracked down a copy and am enjoying it. Note that Per Wahloo's name was listed as "Peter".