murder investigation until Beck arrives on the scene. Allwright, a rural police officer, represents everything that policing in Stockholm is not. He is a sympathetic character who polices honestly and sensitively in the interests of the community – an idealistic portrayal of what policing ought to be about in a liberal democracy and the kind of policeman that Beck would like to be if he had the chance. In contrast stands Lennaret Kollberg, Beck’s partner in Stockholm who, dislliusioned with what policing has become, is contemplating resigning from the force. And herein lies the usual ambiguity in the title. Whilst at face value the title may refer to the tennagers who in the heat of the moment shoot a policeman in the second of the crimes, it isreally not a single police officer, but the whole concept of policing by consent that is the victim, represented by Kollberg, and the killer is society in general. As in The Locked Room, Cop Killer abounds with witty and outspoken social criticism.

And so to the seventh in the Martin Beck series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. The story begins with the murder, with a bayonet, of a senior police officer convalescing in hospital and leads to a killing spree (culminating in a bloody climax) aimed at the police force, against whom the killer appears to hold a grudge. This is arguably the most persistently violent of the Beck novels so far, but as the novel progresses what is exposed is a history of police corruption, violence and