When Stieg Larsson died, the author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had been working on a true mystery that out-twisted his Millennium novels: the assassination on February 28, 1986, of Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister. Larsson’s archive was forgotten until journalist Jan Stocklassa was given exclusive access to the author’s secret project.
Stocklassa closely examines the work Larsson did on the Palme case and picks up the thread where it was left off, delving even deeper into the mystery ... In the first half of the book, Stocklassa does a fantastic job at illustrating how Larsson went about trying to get to the bottom of it all, using letters, original research and summaries from the archives to bring the man's voice to life as well as to walk readers through the timeline of Larsson's detective work and his two main theories ... While the 'Stieg' section is fascinating, it also dramatizes Larsson's life and work in invented scenes that, like dramatic reenactments in true-crime documentaries, are a matter of taste for readers who will likely find them either annoyingly distracting or helpful in entering the dense political detail of the subject matter ... Especially interesting, and honestly thrilling, is how one of Stocklassa's attempts to reach out to all possible leads brought him into communication with an ally of such dedication and talent that it's hard not to compare her, at least a bit, to Lisbeth Salander of Larsson's books ... It's rare, I've found, to see true-crime narratives that convincingly and humbly enter the realm of spy thrillers, but Stocklassa's book really, really does. Whether or not you buy his conclusions — they're well-argued, to be fair, and have led the Swedish police into renewing old lines of inquiry — Stocklassa certainly reveals the sinister underbelly of governmental operations.
Having gained exclusive access to Larsson’s trove of research, Stocklassa presents an in-depth look into the investigation ... This well-crafted whodunit will keep readers engaged from start to finish ... Recommended for most true crime collections. This story is sure to gain international traction as the investigation into the Palme assassination heats up again.
Connecting Larsson to Palme and marketing a book this way is the equivalent of spinning gold out of yarn. In this case, the yarn are Larsson’s never-examined files on the Palme murder. This was the genius of author Jan Stocklassa who took a legitimate interest in solving the Palme murder and then discovered that Larsson also had been obsessed with it ... One can feel Stocklassa’s excitement when he was given access to Larsson’s storage unit filled with boxes of material on the Palme murder. He liberally quotes memos and correspondence throughout the book so that the reader is nearly reading Larsson’s mind. Just the idea of it is compelling ... But then the book hits a snag. One can hardly blame Stocklassa for being too thorough—after all, the casual reader does need to be brought up to speed on who Palme was and why his assassination was important—but do we really need to know every far-flung theory the police chased down? ... One must slog through the middle of this nearly 500-page book filled Swedish names that are difficult to remember and even harder to pronounce. The whole thing feels like chemistry homework and is hard to follow even if you’re invested in the book’s thesis ... One gets the feeling that this book could have been 200 pages shorter and when it comes to the writing, it must be said that Stocklassa is no Larsson ... Fascinating stuff but, as of this writing, the Swedish police authorities continue to investigate even though they’ve had Stocklassa’s book for about a year now. The jury is out.
