The novel's author Per Wahlöö and his 13-year de facto wife Maj Sjöwall wrote in collaborative work ten successful crime novels based on a detective, in the 1960s and 1970s. Several of those novels dealt with crimes in Latin America's republics that were under military dictatorships. It got the Swedish public interest, and subsequent acclaim, of the movie. The attribution of The Swedish Film Institute's Quality Grant (1978) to the movie, also called the attention of international markets to it.