The Laughing Policeman by Sjöwall and Wahlöö

Sjöwall and Wahlöö

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, a common-law wife and husband team of detective writers from Sweden. Together they conceived and wrote a series of ten novels about the exploits of detectives from the special homicide commission of the national police in which the character of Martin Beck was the...

, is the fourth police detective novel, in the ten-part 'Martin Beck

Martin Beck

Martin Beck is a fictional Swedish police detective who is the main character in a series of ten novels by Sjöwall and Wahlöö, collectively titled The Story of a Crime...

' series. Originally published in Sweden in 1968 as Den skrattande polisen, it is the first novel in the series to criticize the shortcomings of the Swedish welfare state

Welfare state

A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...

. In 1971, The Laughing Policeman earned a 'Best Novel' Edgar Award

Edgar Award

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...

 from the Mystery Writers of America

Mystery Writers of America

Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....

. The American police procedural film, The Laughing Policeman

The Laughing Policeman (film)

The Laughing Policeman is an American police procedural film loosely based on the novel The Laughing Policeman by Sjöwall and Wahlöö. The setting of the story is transplanted from Stockholm to San Francisco...

(1973) featuring Walter Matthau

Walter Matthau

Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...

, is a loose adaptation of the novel.

Explanation of the title

The novel's title, The Laughing Policeman, derives from a 1922 song so titled

The Laughing Policeman (song)

"The Laughing Policeman" is a music hall song by Charles Jolly, the pseudonym of Charles Penrose.-The Song:In 1922, Penrose made the first recording of this song, . The composition of the song is officially credited to his wife Mabel under the pseudonym "Billie Grey"; however, the music and melody...

: Detective Beck receives the record as a Christmas gift from his daughter, Ingrid, but does not think it a funny joke, yet, Beck's first laugh, comes when the dead Det. Åke Stenström is vindicated.

Plot summary

A gunman shoots the passengers of a public transport bus with a sub-machine gun; he kills eight people (including Detective Åke Stenström), and wounds one. Detective Beck and his team suspect the mass-murder is to disguise the murder of Detective Stenstrom, who was spending his free time investigating the sixteen-year-old murder of a Portuguese prostitute.

Character development

To solve the case, several outsiders are called: Detective Ullholm (a reactionary who informs on his fellow officers as a hobby); Per Månsson (introduced in a previous novel; is the man who can find anything); and detective Nordin (the most tenacious investigator). Åsa Torrell, Stenström's girlfriend, plays a significant, emotional, part in the story, and, after slowly recovering from the shock of her boyfriend's murder, admits to planning to join the police.