From the grand master of Scandinavian crime fiction—and one of the best crime writers of our time—a new critically acclaimed novel centered around the unsolved murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.

It's August 2007, and Lars Martin Johansson, chief of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Sweden has opened the files on the unsolved murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme. With his retirement quickly closing in, Johansson forms a new group comprised of a few trustworthy detectives who doggedly wade through mountains of paperwork and pursue new leads in a case that has all but gone cold despite the open wound the assassination has left on the consciousness of Swedish society. Yet the closer the group gets to the truth, the more Johansson compromises the greater good for personal gain, becoming a pawn for the private vendetta of a shady political spin doctor. Sharply detailed and boldly plotted, Persson's work lifts the veil on one of history's greatest unsolved crimes in a novel that goes toe-to-toe with the best of true crime books.

Shortlisted for the 2015 Petrona Award and the 2015 CWA International Dagger


Stockholm. The dead of winter. The temperature is already well below freezing.

A young American dies, falling from a tall building. It appears to be a casual, self-inflicted death. It should be an open-and-shut case. But when Superintendent Lars Martin Johansson begins to delve beneath the layers of corruption, incompetence and violence that threaten to strangle the Stockholm police department, he uncovers a complex web of treachery, politics and espionage.

Johansson quickly realizes that there is nothing routine about this suicide as it soon takes him from domestic drama to the rotten heart of Sweden's government.