I loved pretty well all the books in this classic detective series featuring Martin Beck and for me, this is the best. ( )

The Abominable Man (1971) (Martin Beck #7) by Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo. The title character is killed off at the beginning of the novel which sets all the following actions in motion. The murdered, older man, is killed in his hospital bed, knifed by a stranger and unseen by security. When the homicide squad is alerted they are only surprised the killing took so long to happen. The dead man is a former policeman known for his bad treatment of perps, trainees, and fellow officers, lying while under oath and manufacturing evidence when it was needled. He was a hard man with hard ways for everything except his own family. He was nicknamed the Abominable Man by his coworkers and they meant it.
But he was a cop so there has to be justice. This book differs from the previous editions in the ten part Story of Crime series in that there is a great deal of immediate action. Spanning roughly 24 hours we read from muder, through the manhunt for the “crazed” killer and finally to the confrontation with the self same. There is the usual collection of police including Martin Beck, and there are the usual political views expressed by the authors including taking on the code of silence rampant in most police departments while also belittling the out-of-date methods of the strong-arm police tactics.
This is not your standard Police Procedural tale nor is it the normal Martin Beck story. It is something more powerful than either or those. Writing this more than 50 years after it’s original publication, I am stunned to realize that the things reported in this and the other books in the 10 volume series, are to some degree or another, happening in cities and towns all around the world. Or maybe I’m not stunned at all. It is true, the more things change… ( )

En man mördas brutalt på Sabbatsbergs sjukhus i Stockholm. Einar Rönn från våldsroteln åker dit. När han får reda på att det är den sjukskrivne kommissarien Stig Nyman kontaktar han kommissarie Martin Beck. Via Lennart Kollberg får Martin Beck och Einar Rönn reda på att Stig Nyman var en riktigt dålig och osympatisk polis som under sin levnadstid hade hunnit skaffa sig en hel del fiender. Martin Beck, Einar Rönn och Kollberg slår fast att motivet till mordet endast kan vara hämnd. Men vem skulle kunna vara så hämndlysten att mörda en polis? Einar Rönn börjar granska en hög med JO-anmälningar som Stig Nyman fått under sin levnadstid, medan Beck intervjuar en polis som försvarar Nymans beteende som ett uttryck för kåranda.

Dalagatan 34 där flera av action-scenerna i boken utspelar sig.
Under tiden klättrar en tungt beväpnad man upp på ett tak mitt i centrala Stockholm, belägrar sig och börjar skjuta vilt omkring sig på gatorna. Flera försök att övermanna honom misslyckas.

Un veterano de policía es asesinado salvajemente mientras se encontraba hospitalizado. Ante ello, Martin Beck presiente un peligro inminente. En cuanto investiga con su equipo, averigua que la víctima era conocido en el ejército como "El abominable hombre de Säffle" por sus métodos brutales. Una brutalidad que siguió ejerciendo durante su carrera como policía: cometió todo tipo de abusos con centenares de personas, en un montón de formas diferentes. La venganza es el móvil evidente y muchos los sospechosos de haberla ejecutado.

I realize that much of my liking for this series is due to the excellent audiobook narration by Tom Weiner. After seven novels, I can tell who is talking just by his tone of voice. He does a super job. This story is pretty grim, though not as bad as the child murders in an earlier book. Plotwise, it is pretty linear, but it gives the authors a chance to comment on unrestrained police brutality as Beck and company pursue the murderer of a police inspector with a very nasty reputation. ( )