Pressure point

On May 28, 1999, two policemen were murdered in the village Malexander by the Nazis Tony Olsson, Jackie Arklöv and Andreas Axelsson. The night before the murders, Tony Olsson had played himself in the last performance of Lars Norén’s play Sju tre (7:3) at Riksteatern. Norén wrote the controversial play together with Olsson and two other men, all in prison with long sentences for serious crimes. Two of them were Nazis, and expressed their views in the play.

The murders of the policemen Robert Karlström and Olof Borén were a deeply traumatic event, not only for the affected families but also for the Sweden in general, and cast a long shadow over Lars Norén’s work.

Was there a connection between the play and the murders? If that was the case, what was it? Elisabeth Åsbrink’s revealing examination of the course of events in Pressure Point (Smärtpunkten) has become a modern classic.

Pressure Point was nominated for the August prize for best non-fiction in 2009 and has now become a much talked about tv-series, with David Dencik in the role of Lars Norén.

REVIEWS

”I like this book very much. It is well documented, well written, unusually nuanced and convincing.” Kulturnyheterna, SVT

”Pressure Point is the best Swedish book about a high-profile true crime since Lasermannen.” Östgöta korrespondenten