Stockholm Homicide Squad's Inspector Martin Beck is assigned to search for Alf Matsson, a vanished Swedish journalist, and finds himself becoming involved in an international racket that leads him to some enigmatic Eastern European underworld figures.

With a New 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 puts the tiny town of Malmo on edge. However, no one in the restaurant, not even the victim before his death, was able to identify the gunman, and local police were sheepishly baffled. Beck takes over the scene and finds...

"Seventh novel in the Martin Beck mystery series," together known as "The story of crime." "The gruesome murder of a police captain in his hospital room reveals the unsavory history of a man who spent forty years practicing a horrible blend of strongarm police work and sheer brutality. Martin Beck and his colleagues feverishly comb Stockholm for the murderer, a demented and deadly rifleman, who has plans for even more chaos. As the tension builds...