The Man Who Played with Fire: Stieg Larsson's Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin

by Jan Stocklassa

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. —Hanlon’s razor

A woman was murdered near a lake in the region of Småland, which gave me an idea for a book about murder locations. A little over a year later, it turned out that the explanation for the death was also very Swedish. The police found new forensic evidence, and the killer turned out to be a moose.

At moments it develops with the speed of a Robert Ludlum novel. Other days it turns out to be more of an Agatha Christie puzzle, only to develop into an Ed McBain police procedural touched off by a Westlake comedy.

According to the police theory, the killing had all the hallmarks of a professional killing. Journalists–with a bit of hesitation—tend to agree with this idea. Item: The killer used only one single shot, but the weapon was one of the most powerful handguns in the world; anybody who has any knowledge about the weapon knows what a devastating effect the single bullet would cause. As it turned out, the bullet entered in the center of the prime minister’s back, snapped the spinal column, crushed the lungs and ripped the gullet and the windpipe and exited leaving a hole you could throw your hat into. Death was instantaneous or within seconds. The bullet, although it was not meant to disintegrate, was rolling, had a jacket meant to penetrate an eventual bulletproof vest.

filing down the intake port on a carburetor.

and the Swedish part of Operation Chaos. The latter was the CIA’s infiltration of, among other things, American Vietnam War deserters in Sweden, which was carried out with CIA director William Casey’s consent. Casey was a real piece of work in Stieg’s eyes because of his active role in the completely unnecessary invasion of Grenada in 1983.

“That would mean that the guy who dropped off the warning before the assassination was being tailed by both military counterintelligence and Säpo . . .” “And that neither of them acted to prevent the assassination,”

Craig Williamson, a South African security services agent who has been widely written about. Williamson, a police officer who advanced within the security services, was hailed as “the Master Spy” in the South African press.

Through his position, Williamson also received information about what the apartheid opposition was up to. When black anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko planned to travel to Botswana in September 1977 to meet Olof Palme and the ANC’s Oliver Tambo, Williamson passed the information along to his colleagues within the South African police. On August 18, 1977, Steve Biko was arrested at a roadblock and beaten severely during his interrogation. He died of his injuries on September 12. Biko was just one example of the anti-apartheid activists who died as a result of Craig Williamson’s actions.

to put it another way, since Stieg was testing the theory about South Africa with Wedin as a middleman: If South Africa had arranged the murder and Östling wasn’t involved, despite all the aggravating circumstances, then Stieg would eat his hat. Although he’d have to buy the hat first, since he didn’t own one.