The Assassination of the Prime Minister
June 2020: At a well-attended press conference, Chief Prosecutor Krister Petersson announces the decision to close the investigation of the murder of Olof Palme, with the motivation that the prime suspect is deceased, making it collective anticlimax. Many Swedes still remember that February night in 1986 when the Prime Minister was shot on Sveavägen in Stockholm, on his way home from a cinema with his wife. Many followed the murder investigation, with its main leads and stray leads, without ever getting a clear answer to what happened. The murder became a national wound that would never fully heal.
Hans-Gunnar Axberger brings us back to the very beginning and gives us a broad and detailed description of the world’s largest police investigation, so grossly mismanaged that it already after a few months became clear that the perpetrator would most likely get away. What went wrong? How could Sweden’s Prime Minister be murdered on an open street? And how could so many police officers and hours of investigation still not solve the murder?
As chief secretary of the state’s review commission, Hans-Gunnar Axberger has deeper knowledge of the Palme investigation than most. The Assassination of the Prime Minister is an indispensable piece of contemporary Swedish history. It is a story about our nation, about our image of ourselves, and about our inability to learn from our mistakes.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUGUST PRIZE 2022
“The best thing ever written about the Palme murder.”
Leif GW Persson
“The Assassination of the Prime Minister is a tour de force; non-fiction where the educative and the literary ambitions work together joyfully.”
Dagens Nyheter
“Hans-Gunnar Axberger’s newly-release book The Assassination of the Prime Minister is the best that has ever been written in the subject. Most suitable for the August Prize for Best Non-fiction. Excellent reading for the those who wish to read only one book about the murder of Olof Palme.”
Jan Guillou, Aftonbladet
Hans-Gunnar Axberger is a professor in Constitutional Law. He has worked as a director at the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention; as Press Ombudsman (PO, 1990–1992), and as Parliamentary Ombudsman (JO, 2008–2013). He was a member and chief secretary of the Review Commission (1996–1999), the state commission appointed to review the police’s work in…
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Norway: Kristoffersen PublishingJune 2020: At a well-attended press conference, Chief Prosecutor Krister Petersson announces the decision to close the investigation of the murder of Olof Palme, with the motivation that the prime suspect is deceased, making it collective anticlimax. Many Swedes still remember that February night in 1986 when the Prime Minister was shot on Sveavägen in Stockholm, on his way home from a cinema with his wife. Many followed the murder investigation, with its main leads and stray leads, without ever getting a clear answer to what happened. The murder became a national wound that would never fully heal.
Hans-Gunnar Axberger brings us back to the very beginning and gives us a broad and detailed description of the world’s largest police investigation, so grossly mismanaged that it already after a few months became clear that the perpetrator would most likely get away. What went wrong? How could Sweden’s Prime Minister be murdered on an open street? And how could so many police officers and hours of investigation still not solve the murder?
As chief secretary of the state’s review commission, Hans-Gunnar Axberger has deeper knowledge of the Palme investigation than most. The Assassination of the Prime Minister is an indispensable piece of contemporary Swedish history. It is a story about our nation, about our image of ourselves, and about our inability to learn from our mistakes.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUGUST PRIZE 2022
“The best thing ever written about the Palme murder.”
Leif GW Persson
“The Assassination of the Prime Minister is a tour de force; non-fiction where the educative and the literary ambitions work together joyfully.”
Dagens Nyheter
“Hans-Gunnar Axberger’s newly-release book The Assassination of the Prime Minister is the best that has ever been written in the subject. Most suitable for the August Prize for Best Non-fiction. Excellent reading for the those who wish to read only one book about the murder of Olof Palme.”
Jan Guillou, Aftonbladet
