[1][4][5] Deputy chief of Swedish National Criminal Police (RKP) Lars Martin Johansson, however, is not convinced of the official version and, when he finds a piece of paper with his (theoretically secret) private address in the heel of Krassner's shoe, he begins a solitary investigation.

[1][4][5] The parallel storyline of the novel simultaneously concerns the events of Swedish Security Service (RPS/Säk), whose chief Erik Berg, with his protégé Claes Waltin, is instructed by the government to investigate the presence of right-wing extremists within the police forces.

On the background of a historical reconstruction of Swedish political and military situation between 1940 and 1990, Johansson understand that the journalist was killed and why, but he doesn't materially discover the culprit.

[3] The novel presents several characters that, although in some cases in a caricatural way, are recognizable as portraits of people who really existed:[3] Furthermore, several elements of the story refer to traces actually followed during Palme murder investigation: CIA, RPS/Säk, Nazi policemen of the Norrmalm district, Swedish right-wing extremists.

In 2013, a Swedish TV miniseries, En pilgrims död [sv], was drawn from the combination of this novel and Falling Freely, as if in a Dream, directed by Kristoffer Nyholm and Kristian Petri.