Roseanna

Roseanna

This was a great and easy read for me, probably because when I read this book I had just finished reading The Book Thief, which was rather drawn out and descriptive.

The writing was compact, with no room to skim read, and the story was constantly moving along.

The story is about .. wait for it .. a girl named Roseanna, who is introduced to us as a dead girl.  A naked dead girl.  It seems no one knew who she was, no one recognised her at all, and she had no clothes, belongings, nothing to identify her.

Martin Beck is the detective of the story, who is not happy leaving the crime unsolved.  And so, over much time and old-style sleuthing, we are taken along on the trail of finding out who Rosanna was, and how she became to be dead in Sweden.

I found it really interesting to read a crime story set in the seventies.  The methods of investigation and reporting are so different to what we are exposed to today, and it was quite fascinating to read a detective story in the time of no technology.  No internet or email; no extensive electronic databases or systems; only slow correspondence with overseas police departments, old photographs on projectors, and slow but calculated police work.  I felt as though it was a good representation of how crime was solved pre-technology, a rare insight.

The authors Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, both Swedish and Marxist, were big in their day, greatly influencing much of contemporary crime writing and police novels.

This book is number one in a series of ten, all featuring Martin Beck and his colleagues.  I have now read ..

    The Man Who Went Up in Smoke            The Man on the Balcony

Currently reading .. The Laughing Policeman