The shocking sixth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by the internationally renowned crime writing duo by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Beck investigating a brutal assassination. With an introduction by Arne Dahl.  When Viktor Palmgren, a powerful Swedish industrialist is shot during his after-dinner speech in the luxurious Hotel Savoy, it sends a shiver down the spine of the international money markets and terrifies the tiny town of Malmo. No one in the restaurant can identify the gunman, and local police are sheepishly baffled. That's when Beck takes over the scene and quickly picks through Palmgren's background. What he finds is a web of vice so despicable that it's hard for him to imagine who wouldn't want Palmgren dead, but that doesn't stop him and his team of dedicated detectives from tackling one of their most intriguing cases yet. "So many of the elements that have become integral . . . in the police procedural started life in these ten novels. . . . Their plots are second to none."—Val McDermid “Magically successful, a series of crime novels you shouldn't miss.”— Minneapolis Tribune “It's hard to think of any other thriller writers (apart from Simenon perhaps) who can capture so much of a society in a couple of hundred pages and yet still hold true to the thriller form.”—Sean and Nicci French“One of the most authentic, gripping and profound collection of police procedurals ever accomplished.”—Michael Connelly Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, her husband and coauthor, wrote ten Martin Beck mysteries. They plotted and researched each book together then wrote alternate chapters. The books were written over a ten year period and carefully planned to allow for gradual character development and evolving social commentary as the series continued. Mr Wahloo, who died in 1975, was a reporter for several Swedish newspapers and magazines and wrote numerous radio and television plays, film scripts, short stories, and novels. Maj Sjöwall is also a poet. 1The day was hot and stifling, without a breath of air. There had been a haze quivering in the atmosphere, but now the sky was high and clear, its colors shifting from rose to dusky blue. The sun's red disk would soon disappear beyond the island of Ven. The evening breeze, which was already rippling the smooth mirror of the Sound, brought weak puffs of agreeable freshness to the streets of Malmo. With the gentle wind came fumes of the rotting garbage and seaweed that had been washed up on Ribersborg Beach and in through the mouth of the harbor into the canals.The city doesn't resemble the rest of Sweden to a very great degree, largely because of its location. Malmo is closer to Rome than to the midnight sun, and the lights of the Danish coast twinkle along the horizon. And even if many winters are slushy and windblown, summers are just as often long and warm, filled with the song of the nightingale and scents from the lush vegetation of the expansive parks.Which is exactly the way it was that fair summer evening early in July 1969. It was also quiet, calm and quite deserted. The tourists weren't noticeable to any extent--they hardly ever are. As for the roaming, unwashed hash-smokers, only the first bands had arrived, and not so many more would show up either, since most of them never get past Copenhagen.It was rather quiet even in the big hotel across from the railroad station near the harbor. A few foreign businessmen were deliberating over their reservations at the reception desk. The checkroom attendant was reading one of the classics undisturbed in the depths of the cloakroom. The dimly lit bar contained only a couple of regular customers speaking in low voices and a bartender in a snow-white jacket.In the large eighteenth-century dining room to the right of the lobby there wasn't much going on either, even if it was somewhat livelier. A few tables were occupied, mostly by people who were sitting alone. The pianist was taking a break. In front of the swinging doors leading to the kitchen stood a waiter, hands behind his back, looking contemplatively out of the big open windows, probably lost in thoughts of the sand beaches not too far away.A dinner party of seven, a well dressed and solemn gathering of varying sexes and ages, was sitting in the back of the dining room. Their table was cluttered with glasses and fancy dishes, surrounded by champagne coolers. The restaurant personnel had discreetly withdrawn, for the host had just risen to speak.He was a tall man in late middle age, with a dark-blue shantung suit, iron gray hair and a deep suntan. He spoke calmly and skillfully, modulating his voice in subtly humorous phrases. The other six at the table sat watching him quietly; only one of them was smoking.Through the open windows came the sounds of passing cars, trains switching tracks at the station across the canal, a switchyard that is the largest in northern Europe, the abrupt hoarse tooting of a boat from Copenhagen, and somewhere on the ban