num_pages: 224
description: On a cold and rainy Stockholm night, nine bus riders are gunned down by a mysterious assassin. The press portrays it as a freak attack and dubs the killer a madman. But Superintendent Martin Beck thinks otherwise—one of his most ambitious young detectives was among those killed—and he suspects it was more than coincidence. Working on a hunch, Beck seeks out the girlfriend of the murdered detective, and with her help Beck reconstructs the steps that led to his murder. The police comb the country for the killer, only to find that this attack may be connected to a case that has been unsolved for years.
language: English
title: The Laughing Policeman
titlecomplete: The Laughing Policeman (Martin Beck, #4)
characters: Martin Beck, Lennart Kollberg
genres: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Nordic Noir, Detective, Mystery Thriller, Crime, Sweden, Swedish Literature, Scandinavian Literature
ratings_count: 9742
places: Stockholm
series: Martin Beck 
awards: awardedAt: 31564800000
name: CWA Silver Dagger, awardedAt: 31564800000
name: Edgar Award
category: Best Novel
publisher: Orion