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In August 2017, journalist Kim Wall went missing after boarding a Danish inventor’s submarine. As details of “the Submarine Case” emerged, the story made headlines around the world.
This is the riveting account of a brutal murder and the extraordinary investigation that brought the killer to justice.
International freelance journalist Kim Wall had traveled to many dangerous places, reporting on the “undercurrents of rebellion,” but it was in Denmark, a few miles from her childhood home in Sweden, that her life was taken. Wall was on assignment, interviewing the celebrated entrepreneur/inventor Peter Madsen in his submarine, when he attacked and killed her.
Madsen, whose psychopathic rage fell under the radar of his many friends and supporters, was arrested the morning after but attempted to hide the crime in a series of lies that shifted as more evidence emerged. Ubådssagen—known internationally as “the Submarine Case”—unfolded like the most gruesome Nordic Noir.
Through painstaking research, journalist Christina Anderson traces the case’s unfolding in Scandinavia, how it was reported, and how it illuminates larger issues: misogyny, sexual violence, mental health, power, and ethics. Having covered the case for the New York Times starting from the day after the crime, and drawing on dozens of interviews with the investigative team, Anderson offers unparalleled access to the remarkable police work and trial. In these pages, she gives readers an exclusive glimpse behind the headlines, into the heart of the fight for justice in a murder case that sent shockwaves around the world.
With sensitivity and scrupulous attention to detail, Under the Surface explores persistent sociological issues, pays tribute to Wall and honors the superlative team that stopped at nothing to expose the truth.
