The Man Who Played with Fire

Stieg Larsson's secret files and the hunt for Sweden's most wanted killer.

The Man Who Played with Fire will leave investigative fans eager to discover the full contents of Larsson's files. The author of the Millennium series has gathered the clues. Now, a journalist is following them.

When Stieg Larsson died, he was working on a true mystery that altered the course of his novels: the 1986 assassination of Olof Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden. Never in history had a head of state been assassinated without leaving a trace, at point-blank range, on a Stockholm street.

Despite being internationally famous for his fictional villains, Larsson had a strong relationship with his real-life informants and managed to document extremist activity around the world. For years, he accumulated evidence linking terrorist acts by these groups to what he called "one of the most astonishing murder cases" he had ever covered. However, Larsson's file was forgotten until journalist Jan Stocklassa gained exclusive access to the author's secret project.

In The Man Who Played with Fire , Stocklassa pieces together the puzzle left by Larsson about the real-life crime to follow the trail of intrigue, espionage, and conspiracy initiated by one of the world's most famous thriller writers. Together, they solve a mystery no one could solve.

"A fascinating 'creative nonfiction' that tells the greatest mystery in Swedish history." - Wall Street Journal

"Stocklassa's book sheds new light on a tragedy that has haunted Sweden for three decades... It reads like a spy thriller." - The New European

"Stocklassa manages to infect us with the 'Palme virus.' It's impossible to read and not long for the resolution." - The Spectator