A true story of spies and intrigue surrounding one of the most enduring unsolved mysteries of the 20th century, investigative reporter Ravi Somaiya uncovers the story behind the death of renowned diplomat and UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld.
... an adroitly written, compelling book. If Mr. Somaiya doesn’t deliver a final solution to the mystery—who could?—he leads the reader through the tangled brush to the most likely explanation. And he does it in an efficient 260 pages ... He deftly sets scenes (like the description of Hammarskjöld’s body above), sketches his long cast of characters and tells his intricate story with verve and economy ... Mr. Somaiya skillfully identifies all the conflicting clues about the crash and the equally intriguing missing records and contradictory witnesses ... It’s unlikely that a definitive answer to the mystery will ever materialize. Mr. Somaiya’s fascinating book is the best proxy we can expect.
... a fascinating attempt to find the truth about a decades-old mystery, but it’s also an examination of one of the battlefields of the Cold War, when both the West and the Soviet Union eyed former European colonies with a view toward controlling them ... despite the darkness of his subject matter, Somaiya’s writing style is often charming and witty ... Somaiya’s finest work is in the chapters on the investigations of the crash of the Albertina...He has mastered a staggering amount of detail – the basics of 1960s aviation, the operations of Union Miniére, conjectures about flight patterns, multiple eyewitness testimonies, competing conspiracy theories, questionable confessions – all conveyed with a breathtaking clarity. And his retelling of all the possible reasons and explanations for the Albertina’s crash, all the irregularities and implausibilities of the night’s events, provides irresistible reading ... Somaiya is persuasive: Readers will finish this book convinced that some very powerful people believed they had much to gain from Hammarskjöld’s death ... a tour de force of a real-life murder mystery.
...thought-provoking ... Fans of novelists such as Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum, as well as military history and true crime enthusiasts, will find much to enjoy about this riveting read.
