The Man Who Played with Fire: Stieg Larsson's Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin
Investigating the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme was one of Steig Larsson’s largest works. Before he was known as the author of the Millennium Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), he was an investigative journalist with a passion for stopping right-wing extremists in Sweden. To this day the murder of Olof Palme has not been solved; in this book Stocklassa describes Larsson’s theories and research…he then picks up his own investigation where Larsson left off after his passing in the early 2000’s. Can Stocklassa put together enough pieces to this mystery and bring Palme’s assassins to justice?
This book was such an interesting read. Having been someone who read and loved Steig Larsson’s trilogy, I was naturally interested to find out that he had been investigating a true crime before he wrote his books. The first half of this novel goes over all of Larsson’s research and theories in the Palme murder. The second half of the book is Jan Stocklassa’s research and connections. It is amazing that after so many years the author was still able to make headway in so many areas. This was a great book if you love true crime but I would say the two let downs or frustrations that I experienced was that there was a HUGE cast of characters, which is normal given the fact that the case still hasn’t been solved and there are a lot of suspects in this investigation. The second is what I just stated before, there is no formal conclusion to this story; no one has been charged or convicted of the Palme assassination to date, so you have to be ready for that before picking this one up.
I would recommend this book to those who love true crime podcasts like Teacher’s Pet, or the Steig Larsson trilogy.
Malia's Pizza Rating
The Conspiracy Theory – with every topping on the menu piled so high that you have to pick through it all to figure out what’s what!