The Terrorists (novel)

The crime novel Die Terroristen (Swedish original title: Terroristerna ) is the tenth and final volume in the crime series novel about a crime by the Swedish author couple Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö . The first Swedish edition of the book appeared in 1975. The German translation appeared in 1977 in the FRG and in 1986 in the GDR.

action

Martin Beck and his colleagues are supposed to prevent a suspected terrorist attack on an American senator during his state visit to Sweden. The attack is planned by the (fictional) international terrorist organization ULAG, which has carried out several successful and extremely brutal attacks.

Beck is appointed head of the protection unit for the state visit and is supposed to plan remote protection with four colleagues. They assume that the attack will take place in a place that the convoy must pass, presumably as a bomb attack following the same pattern as a previous ULAG attack in a Latin American country.

The four ULAG terrorists manage to plant the bomb. However, when the ignition is triggered, they are deceived by delayed television reporting and Einar Rönn, one of Beck's four inspectors, manages to clear the place shortly before the explosion.

The situation seems to be already under control when there is an assassination attempt, the victim of which is not the American senator, but the Swedish head of government. The perpetrator is a young woman who is completely alienated from society and who is already known from one of the other storylines in the novel.

Two of the four terrorists can be caught by the police in their hiding place and arrested. The third, Levallois, fled beforehand. The police cordoned off all routes across the national borders. When the fourth terrorist Heydt meets the police, there is an exchange of fire in which Heydt is killed and a police officer is injured.

Socially critical components

Even more clearly than in the previous nine volumes, “The Terrorists” is a general settlement of the author duo with the political and economic leadership of Sweden.

“Despite all the other differences, this country [a Latin American dictatorship ] , like Sweden, was a sham democracy, ruled by a capitalist economy and cynical professional politicians who took great care to maintain the semblance of some kind of socialism that was just a reflection of it became. "(2nd chapter)

In addition to striking passages such as the one cited that are clearly directed against the Swedish social system, the criticism of Swedish society runs more or less noticeably through the entire plot, for example during a court hearing in which a very bizarre defense attorney, despite the clear innocence of his client, only goes along with it Effort obtained an acquittal; although it is more than obvious that the proceedings should have been discontinued long before that.

“Bulldozer Olsson [the prosecutor] won all of his cases with a few exceptions. It would have been gently said that this was not particularly flattering to the legal system. What that actually meant one did not even dare to think about. "(3rd chapter)

Movie

The novel was filmed with significantly different content in 1994 with the Swedish-German production “Stockholm Marathon”; in Germany the film had the alternative title “Death runs with”. The director was Peter Keglevic .