“The Man Who Went up in Smoke” Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

“The Man Who Went up in Smoke” is the fourth Martin Beck mystery I have read but only the second in the series. It has been my experience so far that the earlier the book is in the series the better I like it, and this book adds further evidence to this hypothesis.

Since I have read many books set in Sweden, the names of the regions, towns and streets are becoming familiar to me, but I have neither visited Sweden nor have I studied its geography. Thus, my knowledge of these places is limited to the descriptions in the books I have read. “The Man Who Went up in Smoke” has action that takes place in Budapest, Hungary, and I have not only studied the geography of Budapest but have visited the city twice, in 2002 and 2004. So, I was happy to revisit the tourist sites and travel along familiar streets with Martin Beck as he investigated the disappearance of a Swedish man in Budapest. This book was written in 1966, and there was no difference in the tourist attractions Beck visited and where we visited in the few days we were there. I could see the sights that Beck did as he climbed up Gellért Hill and appreciated the need for a cool breeze. I have crossed the same bridges he did, took the same subways, and went to the same train stations. He made me long for the taste of barack palinka. Being in Budapest with Beck makes me want to visit Stockholm and the other cities of Sweden so I can walk the streets described by Sjöwall and Wahlöö.

Of course, one large difference between my Budapest and Beck’s Budapest is his was in the People’s Republic of Hungary. I was hoping to learn more about life in the city at that time, but I found nothing specific in the story about the type of communist rule there was in Hungary at the time.

The mystery is an interesting story. A man travels to Budapest and after a couple of nights in lodging is never heard from again. He is a journalist, but there are unanswered questions about how he does his job and why he travels to Eastern Europe so much. One of the satisfying elements of the book is that the work of solving the mystery centers on Martin Beck. However, his team does spend some quality time in a Stockholm pub trying to get information out of the journalist’s friends. I also enjoyed the interplay between Beck and the police in Budapest.