Steven Mackintosh stars as Martin Beck, with Neil Pearson as Lennart Kollberg, in this BBC Radio 4 dramatization of The Man Who Went Up in Smoke.
The Martin Beck books are widely acknowledged as some of the most influential detective novels ever written. Written by Swedish husband and wife team Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, the series set a gold standard for all subsequent Scandanavian crime fiction. Before Kurt Wallander or Harry Hole, Beck was the original flawed policeman, working alongside his colleagues to uncover the cruelty and injustice lurking beneath the surface of Sweden's seemingly liberal, democratic society.
In The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, adapted from the second book, a journalist has vanished in Budapest. When Beck arrives in the city to investigate, he is drawn into the Eastern European underworld. Before long his team back in Sweden begin to make some connections....
Translated by Joan Tate and dramatised by Katie Hims.
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