Beck Rum 302 (1997– ) Online

In this episode, the second in BBC Four's season of BECK mysteries, our intrepid heroes (Peter Haber, Mikael Persbrandt) investigate a murder case at a Stockholm hotel involving a seventeen-year-old girl, a teenage brat (Filip Berg), his father (Niklas Hjulström) and a couple of car thieves. The denouement is satisfyingly surprising in the way it frustrates our expectations as to who the murderer actually is.

What makes this episode so interesting is the way in which director Mårten Klingberg uses the material to make some significant social commentary on contemporary Swedish life. The police try to find the car-thieves by going into a rundown housing estate, and by doing so incite a riot. The responsibility for this lies with Beck's boss, who decides to send in police with full protective gear rather than adopting a softly-softly approach, which might have worked better. Such bungled operations only serve to make Beck's task of solving the case that much more difficult.

In investigating the murder, Beck becomes involved in the sleazy underworld of the night-club. Presided over by a good-for-nothing owner (Ulf Stenberg) who spends his day-times training in a gym, the club willingly tolerates underage party-goers who end up getting stoned and hence not in control of themselves. It seems as if the sole aim of such people is to squeeze as much money as possible out of youngsters. In this mind of hedonistic environment it's hardly surprising that teenagers put their lives at risk. Gunvald Larsson (Persbrandt) discovers this in the nick of time, as he rescues his teenage niece from the club.

BECK contains some of the clichés associated with the detective genre - the lonely cops going back to empty homes and trying to cope with complicated personal lives. Nonetheless there are some amusing variations on familiar themes; in the evening Beck comes out on his apartment balcony to exchange pleasantries with an aging eccentric who might be fantasizing about his daily experiences. Beck's expression remains deadpan throughout, although it's clear that such moments provide him with much-needed comic relief.

As this episode opens with a man being mugged and having his car stolen; he calls the police but lies about where he was when it was stolen. This is only tangentially related to the main story though; that concerns the murder of a seventeen year old girl who was discovered naked in a hotel room. Her parents thought she was a 'good girl' but evidence suggests that she had been in the room with two men; one of whom paid with the credit card of the man who we'd seen mugged earlier. Before they can solve the murder they must find the people who stole the car, establish exactly who it was who rented the room. As the case continues certain suspects believe others must be responsible and the dead girl's ex decides to take matters into his own hands.

This was another enjoyable episode with a gripping case; the opening scene where the mugging victim hides his location quickly sets him up as a suspect in the viewer's mind but this cliché is avoided… as are several others. While this is a mystery rather than an action series that doesn't mean there aren't exciting moments; these include a near riot when the police arrest the car thieves in a rough area of the city and a couple of fairly brutal beatings where suspects are attacked. When the killer is revealed it is far from obvious. Away from the main story we get a mildly amusing side story where protagonist Martin Beck discovers his daughter is dating a policeman and one of his colleagues learns that his niece is going to the same clubs as the dead girl. The cast put in fine, understated performances making the story feel entirely believable.

These comments are based on watching the story in Swedish with English subtitles.