character itself in this novel, but not just as a pohysical presence – a cultural, historical and psychological one too.

Where Jungstedt has innovated is that there are two heroes in her novels and this becomes stronger in each of the three books so far. As well as Knutas, there is also the journalist Johan Berg – so two heroes, pitched against each other, but both on the same side, as it were. The tension and rivalry between Knutas and Berg is nicely set up by Jungstedt and looks set to play an increasingly important role in future novels.

It is perhaps fitting that the final instalment in the Martin Beck series, The Terrorists, turns its attention from the local (even parochial) settings of most detective fiction to the internationalcontext more common in the spy thriller. The novel, arguably the most political of all in the series, centres around a group of international terrorists, seemingly without any strict ideological commitment, but who are responsible for the assassination of international leaders, statemen and dignitaries. Strictly speaking then, they are not terrorists at all, spreading terror to a whole population with acts designed to cause widescale and indiscriminate death and injury, but a group of professional assassins who target political leaders.

Martin Beck is put in charge of defeating the terrorist threat when Sweden receives the visit of an emminent, right-wing and highly objectionable politician. Whilst Beck carries out his duty dilligently, he barely conceals his contempt for the American and his views, and we, as readers, are inevitablt not