Sjöwall / Wahlöö vs Stieg Larsson

Businessmen are almost always murderers. Farmers are repositories of elemental wisdom and decency. If villains have politics, they are always right-wing: the terrorists in Sjöwall and Wahlöö are South African whites; one of Larsson’s supervillains defected from the KGB to work for the west. No one ever feels guilt about sex, unless they are Christian, in which case they are also perverted murderers. But in the 40 years between the two series, you can see an enormous loss of hope and self-confidence, and the evisceration of the social democratic dream. Sjöwall and Wahlöö wrote about teamwork, not just because they borrowed from Ed McBain: it was important ideologically that the collective should triumph. Their detectives were anchored, happily or otherwise, in families. Larsson’s heroes are purely individual, with no social bonds other than those they choose themselves. Children do not impinge on their lives: parents, where they occur, are monsters. Här finns artikeln.