The Locked Room is a novel by Sjöwall and Wahlöö

Sjöwall and Wahlöö

Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, a common-law wife and husband team of detective writers from Sweden. Together they conceived and wrote a series of ten novels about the exploits of detectives from the special homicide commission of the national police in which the character of Martin Beck was the...

 in their detective series revolving around Martin Beck

Martin Beck

Martin Beck is a fictional Swedish police detective who is the main character in a series of ten novels by Sjöwall and Wahlöö, collectively titled The Story of a Crime...

 and his team. (Original Swedish title: Det slutna rummet.)

Plot summary

The Locked Room has two plots running simultaneously. Larsson and Kollberg are extremely reluctantly part of a special task force that needs to solve a spree of bank robberies. Martin Beck is given a pity job after recovering from being shot at the conclusion of The Abominable Man; he needs to solve a classic situation of the genre: the locked room mystery

Locked room mystery

The locked room mystery is a sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime—almost always murder—is committed under apparently impossible circumstances. The crime in question typically involves a crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room...

.

The incompetence of the Swedish police force has spread to the point that all three detectives are severely hindered in their work. One criminal walks free for a heinous crime he did commit, then gets to do hard time for a crime he did not.

Characters and their development

Beck meets Rhea Nielsen, and it is love at first sight, sort of, in slow motion. Contrary to his ex-wife, she is a no-nonsense type of person and his intellectual equal.

Criminal mastermind Werner Roos and bank robbers Malmström and Mohrén are introduced, as is their ineffectual but successful Nemesis, public prosecutor 'Bulldozer' Olsson.

Film

The book was adapted by Dutch filmmaker Jacob Bijl as De gesloten kamer in 1993. In this film, the action is set in Antwerp and Beck is played by famous Belgian actor Jan Decleir

Jan Decleir

Jan Decleir is a prolific Belgian movie and stage actor born in Niel, Antwerp .He had his first big role in Fons Rademakers "Mira" and has since then appeared in countless Flemish and Dutch films and tv productions...

. Most of the other characters were renamed to match the new setting; for instance, the name of Beck's assistant Kolberg was changed to "Colbert."