Sjöwall and Wahlöö's Martin Beck is a Maigret-like police detective, all-too-human in a grisly world. Widerberg's film captures both the taut, anti-climactic style of the novels and Beck's inadvertent vulnerability. The film, after the book The Abominable Man, is based on an uncomfortable irony: the abominable man is himself a cop. "Martin Beck's world has the ugly stain of everyday reality. Police inspectors work long and hard in this world...they go without sleep, they fail, they have prejudices and make mistakes...Their death is senseless...undramatic and unromantic. Policemen are also sometimes sadistic bastards in this world, law-and-order automatons...Policemen are also snipers, murderers, madmen...Widerberg has captured each of them here, in all the shades of gray..." (Soho Weekly News)