by Maj Sjöwall
Part of Martin Beck
First published 2007
A woman walks into a bank and robs it at gunpoint. Across town, police discover a dead man in a locked room, shot through the heart with no weapon anywhere inside. Detective Inspector Martin Beck stares at two crimes that seem completely separate. The bank robbery follows a clear pattern. The locked room murder defies logic. How does someone shoot a man and vanish from a sealed space? Beck refuses to accept that these incidents happened by coincidence. He begins searching for the thread that connects them, knowing that one case holds the key to the other. The investigation pulls him deeper into a puzzle where nothing appears as it first seemed. Beck must untangle the connection before the killer strikes again. His reputation and the safety of others depend on solving what appears to be an impossible crime.
Genres: 20th-century, mystery, crime, adult-fiction, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, gritty, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: dual-mystery, puzzle-mystery, unreliable-investigation
Setting: bank, locked room
Period: 20th century
291 pages · Paperback · Harper Perennial
Content warnings: murder, violence