ROSEANNA

by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö

This book is the first of a series of 10 novels planned and written by the husbandand wife team of Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö. The book seamless interweaves these two authors words together. Per Wahlöö was an activist journalist and had his own agenda for accomplishing the goal of propagating his beliefs using the entertainment of a crime novel as his vehicle.

From the first moment a young woman's body is pulled from a Swiss lake we are led through the painstakingly procedural steps of determining the crimes' 'who, what, where, when, and why'. The characters of the police force all seem to have unusual and uncanny habits and attitudes. Police investigator Martin Beck, who bounces from bouts of colds and various other maladies to a distant wife and children and an undisclosed unhappiness with life in general plods through months and months of dead ends and cu-de-sacs in his investigation.

As the psychopathology of the murderer leads him further into the story a few of us found ourselves losing interest, having trouble staying 'in the moment'. Though this may be the reality of police investigation, and we are told that the authors are determined to remain faithful to how real investigations take place, it was too much reality for us. The book itself was not difficult to read nor was it long and intimidating. But for many of us it took several days to find our way through it. Some of us didn't find our way at all.

3 STARS