This is how the authors and friends remember May Sjöwall

- It is hardly possible to describe her significance for the cover genre in Sweden, says author Mari Jungstedt to the Culture News.

May Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö wrote ten novels about Martin Beck that made the police novel more political and the romance suite a huge success.

- They have inspired all of us who write crime novels and have had a huge significance with their international success as they did early on. They paved the way for us to come, says Mari Jungstedt.

Author David Lagercrantz also emphasizes Sjöwall / Wahlöö's significance for the cover genre but also highlights Sjöwall's significance after Per Wahlöö's death in 1975.

- May also continued to work. She has been a brilliant translator and a mentor for Swedish writers. It is an incredibly big loss, he says.

Lagercrantz, who among other things wrote She Who Must Die - the continuation of Stieg Larsson's Millennium books, says that his writing was inspired by Sjöwall / Wahlöö.

- That's where I got the idea that criminal literature can do something - can change and have a political message.