The Story of a Crime




















                   






Two book covers from the Martin Beck series, collectively titled 'The Story of a Crime'. Both covers are almost opposites, one a watercolour, the other and photograph; Roseanna showing just the head, while The Man Who Went Up In Smoke shows a business suit in motion, sans body - it wafted away with the title.

The writing duo of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö each wrote alternate chapters for every book, a sort of collaboration I find particularly amazing - the ability to create characters, from the brains of two people, and keeping a believable continuity to their personalities.

I wonder if you can tell which chapters are written by whom? Did Maj Sjöwall take the odd numbers, and Per Wahlöö the even? Did they switch that around every book, so as not to give the game away? There is something pleasingly rounded and symmetrical about the whole process, in the way I find happiness in every Tintin book being 62 pages long.

Deckare

 

 Last week my friend Kah Bee posted a link to the post Cocktaildags: Vintage Swedish Books Covers - a collection of Swedish editions of popular crime stories.

My two personal favourites -

Raymond Chandler, Den stora sömnen (Original title: The Big Sleep), cover by Martin Gavler, printed 1963

John Bingham, Mord i månsken (Original title: Marion), cover by Per Åhlin, printed 1965

And from my own collection - 

Raymond Chandler, Mord, Min Älskling (Murder my darling) (Original title: Farewell, My Lovely), cover by Olle Frankzén, printed 1985


As my Swedish vocabulary slowly but surely increases, I have succumbed to the temptation of purchasing a few of my favourite 'deckare' (crime novels) in Swedish, in the hope that one day I will have become bilingual enough to make it further than the first chapter before I throw my hands in the air in despair and frustration. I recently stumbled across the amazing 1980's Swedish edition of 'Farewell, My Lovely' (Mord, Min Älskling) by Raymond Chandler in a second hand shop around the corner from my house for 10kr.

Judging a book by it's cover is surely one of the best things one can do on such occasions.