Steven Mackintosh stars as Martin Beck, with Neil Pearson as Lennart Kollberg, in this BBC Radio 4 dramatization of "The Laughing Policeman," translated by Alan Blair and dramatized by Jennifer Howarth.In "The Laughing Policeman," adapted from the fourth book in the series, the killing of nine passengers on a Stockholm bus including one of Beck s most promising young detectives sets off a murder hunt that leads Beck and his team back to an unsolved case in the past.The Martin Beck books are widely acknowledged as some of the most influential detective novels ever created. Written by Swedish husband and wife team Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, the series set a gold standard for all subsequent Scandinavian 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."