"To violate society’s banks was to commit an outrage against its very foundations."
That quotation from Sjowall & Wahloo’s The Locked Room, first published in 1973, raised a wry smile. This is the second of the Martin Beck novels that I have been re-reading – all have recently been published in new editions & are being promoted enthusiastically to take advantage of the fashion for Scandi noir.
The authors’ Marxism is much more obvious, in this book, than I remember being conscious of at first reading, or maybe I would just not have thought of labelling it as Marxist (except perhaps for a passing reference to different political/social views as fascist).In 1970s Britain such an analysis probably did not seem unusual.
It was the physical violation of banks by armed criminals that they were talking about – something that was becoming a fashion in countries other than just Sweden. And so began the push to put counter staff behind protective screens & to move cash in armoured security vans.
The screens are disappearing now, making banks much more open & friendly places to do business in; the one I use most frequently has something of the look of an airport check-in. Cash handling has become much more automated too, & my impression (which could be completely mistaken) is that this real-time check on the amount of cash held has reduced the need for deliveries & collections; more decisions about which notes being fit to retain in circulation are also being made in-branch by these machines too.
And the strange thing about this openness is that you actually hear much less of other customers business, as people no longer feel the need to raise their voices to penetrate the glass, or get accidentally broadcast by a faulty microphone system.
Related post
Historic crime
