Finally … the MARTINBECK set is complete …

Yessss, and it is complete … just a few days before the end of the year, the last two remaining novels in the MARTINBECK set were delivered … The Fire Engine that Disappeared and Cop Killer … Nos 5 and 9 and the letters I and C in the series …

I have been pursuing the completion of this set ever since I came across 4 novels in this series in March 2015 … I have written this before, but I wish to reiterate that this set, published by Harper Perennial during 2006-2007, offers a comprehensive retrospective of the MARTINBECK series through ‘introductions’ by fellow ‘police procedure’ and crime novel writers …

Henning Mankell, the author of the well-known ‘Inspector Wallander’ novels writes an introduction to Roseanna, Michael Connelly, writer of the immensely popular Detective Bosch novels introduces The Locked Room, Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse novels writes an introduction to The Fire Engine that Disappeared, and another husband-wife crime writer duo (like Wahloo and Sjowall), Sean and Nicci French, write an introduction to The Laughing Policeman … Andrew Taylor, known for his Lydmouth series and other crime and historical novels, introduces The Man on the Balcony, Val Mcdermid, author of the Dr Tony Hill series and other crime novels has an introduction in The Man who went up in Smoke, and crime fiction reviewer and film critic, Michael Carlson, writes an introduction to Murder at the Savoy …

These essays by such popular and formidable writers could by themselves become a separate book … and it is also enchanting to see all these acclaimed CF writers talking about the ‘Martin Beck’ novels of Sjowall and Wahloo, their seniors in the ‘police procedural’ genre …

Apart from these ‘introductions,’ each novel has some ‘extras’ at the end … essays about this specific genre (some of them repeated across the ten novels), interview pieces with the authors, their biographies, the legacy of the authors, brief bios about other CF writers, other CF novels of the same kind, etc.  …

All in all, it was a nice journey … but I think I gave in too quickly at the end … in spite of them being ‘used books,’ I paid much more for the last three novels in the series than I paid for the earlier seven put together … I think the seller on amazon caught on to this fact that there is this bakra going after the novels in this series … it is no secret actually, it is all there in my posts … (he he … too much, Jai … overaction, overaction only) … anyway, the one thing I am pleased about is all the novels in this set that I bought (from various sources) are used books …

It is a nice way to round off 2016 … not an achievement as such, but some satisfaction … now finally, my set looks like this …

There are other books from other series’ that also came in during the last couple of weeks of 2016, all crime fiction … I will put up posts in the new year …

Wish you all a Happy New Year 2017 … and please continue reading …