Swedish Cops ― From Sjowall & Wahloo to Stieg Larsson

The Cop in the Twilight Land: Swedish Police Narratives 1965-2010 considers Swedish culture and ideas in the period 1965-2010 as expressed in detective fiction and film in the tradition of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. It takes the Swedish police narrative tradition to be part and parcel of the European history of ideas and culture; a history that necessarily comprises America, by extension a European colonial power, which in the process of constructing its national identity eradicated its native population. From being a feared and despised the police emerged as a hero and part of the modern social project of the welfare state after World War II. Establishing themselves artistically and commercially in the forefront of the genre, Sjowall-Wahloo established a model for using the police novel as an instrument for ideological criticism of the Swedish welfare state under the Social Democratic government. With varying political affiliations this has been carried on by authors such as Olov Svedelid, Leif GW Persson, Jan Guillou, Henning Mankell, Hakan Nesser, Anders Roslund & Borge Hellstrom, Stieg Larsson and film such as "Beck", "Wallander" and "Johan Falk".

Michael Tapper teaches film at Lund University. He has been a contributor to the Swedish National Encyclopaedia since 1989 and has served as film critic at the daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet in Malmo, Sweden, since 1999.