The Man Who Went Up in Smoke

Infobox Book
name = The Man Who Went Up in Smoke
title_orig = Mannen som gick upp i rök
translator =


image_caption =
author = Sjöwall and Wahlöö
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = Sweden
language = Swedish
series = "Martin Beck" series
subject =
genre =
publisher = Norstedts Förlag
release_date = 1966
english_release_date =
media_type =
pages = 189 pp
isbn =
oclc =
preceded_by = Roseanna
followed_by = The Man on the Balcony

"The Man Who Went Up in Smoke" (1966) is a novel by Sjöwall and Wahlöö in their detective series revolving around Martin Beck and his team. (Original Swedish title: "Mannen som gick upp i rök".)

Plot summary

Beck leaves his holiday and travels to Hungary to search for a missing journalist called Alf Matsson. After intersecting with the Budapest police and the criminal underground, he begins to wonder if Matsson ever entered the country.

Characters and their development

Beck and Kollberg have their first, short run-in with detective Backlund of the Malmö police force, who lacks the imagination required for his line of work, for which he thinks bureaucracy is a replacement.

It might be argued that Beck and his wife are already getting estranged. It only takes the flimsiest amounts of passive-aggressiveness from his superiors to make him give up his holiday, even though both make clear to him that he does not have to go if he does not want to. Although he reflects on his marriage several times (as does the narrator on marriage in general), he does not draw any conclusions yet.