Allan Karlsson climbs out his nursing home bedroom window to avoid his own 100th birthday party.

Allan boards a departing bus and takes a locked suitcase left unattended by a young criminal named Bolt.

Allan and Julius lock the threatening Bolt inside a meat freezer at the Byringe bus station.

After dropping out of school, young Allan becomes an explosives expert working at a dynamite factory.

The dishonest merchant who cheated Allan's mother drives into Allan's gravel pit and is accidentally blown up.

Allan and Julius open Bolt's suitcase and discover it holds the equivalent of roughly five million dollars.

During the Spanish Civil War, Allan saves the life of General Francisco Franco and is proclaimed a national hero.

Allan casually solves the key detonation problem for the atomic bomb while serving coffee to physicists at Los Alamos.

Gang enforcer Bucket tracks the group to The Beauty's farm and demands the stolen suitcase at gunpoint.

Allan frees Jiang Qing, the wife of Mao Zedong, from the corrupt Chinese soldiers who captured her.

Allan tricks the Tehran police chief into igniting hidden nitroglycerin, destroying the police station and securing his escape.

Allan and Herbert Einstein set fire to container ships in Vladivostok harbor, triggering explosions that engulf the gulag.

Mao Zedong saves Allan's life in North Korea because Allan had previously rescued Mao's wife.

Inspector Aronsson tracks Allan to Bosse's farm and shares coffee and pastries with the centenarian fugitive.

All murder charges against Allan's group are dropped and the group decides to relocate permanently to Bali.

Allan Karlsson's story begins with his escape from a nursing home on his 100th birthday and his accidental acquisition of a suitcase full of criminal money. His past reveals a remarkable century of adventure, from accidentally killing a dishonest merchant to solving the atomic bomb's detonation problem while serving coffee at Los Alamos. Allan's knack for charming powerful men — from Francisco Franco to Harry Truman — repeatedly saves his life and quietly reshapes history. In China, he abandons his anti-communist mission to rescue Mao Zedong's wife, a decision that later saves his life when Mao intervenes in North Korea. Back in the present, the police close in on Allan's growing group of fugitives until a surprising collapse of the murder case clears the way for a new life. The pool ends with the entire group relocating to Bali, where Allan's restless century finally finds something resembling peace.

Allan's greatest escapes, explosions, and world-changing encounters.

Allan meets petty thief Julius Jonsson at a derelict rural bus station and accepts his hospitality for the night.

Bolshevik soldiers shoot and kill Allan's father in Russia after he refuses to give up his tiny strawberry patch.

A psychiatric hospital doctor sterilizes Allan in an attempt to cure him of what the doctor considers antisocial behavior.

Inspector Aronsson begins investigating Allan's disappearance after a police dog tracks Allan's trail to Byringe Station.

Allan and Julius hide Bolt's frozen body inside a steel shipping container bound for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Allan befriends a Spaniard named Estabán at a cannon factory and is persuaded to travel with him to Spain.

The Beauty reads a newspaper article misidentifying Allan's group as a criminal enterprise and demands the full truth.

The Beauty purchases a school bus that the group retrofits with a special compartment to house Sonya the elephant.

American immigration officials detain Allan for four years without charges after impounding his arriving Spanish ship.

Allan treks across the Himalayan Mountains with three Iranian communist companions before border guards shoot all three Iranians.

The school bus, weighed down by Sonya the elephant, cannot stop in time and demolishes Pike's blocking car.

Allan borrows the Swedish embassy's phone in Tehran to call President Truman and arrange a diplomatic passport home.

Benny contacts his estranged brother Bosse and offers him a large sum of money to hide the fugitive group.

Allan and Russian physicist Yury agree to fabricate Soviet nuclear intelligence reports to satisfy successive American presidents for years.

A fox kills Allan's beloved cat Molotov and Allan's dynamite revenge trap accidentally destroys his own house.

This pool follows the secondary characters and overlooked moments that shape Allan's journey, beginning with his chance meeting with Julius and the chain of events it sets in motion. Allan's tragic childhood — losing his father to Bolsheviks, being sterilized in a psychiatric hospital, and surviving alone — explains the resilience that carries him through a century of upheaval. In the present, the group keeps expanding as The Beauty, Sonya the elephant, Pike, and Bosse all fold into Allan's unlikely family. Key events like four years of wrongful American detention, the harrowing Himalayan trek, and the foreign discovery of two missing bodies quietly steer the plot without being its loudest moments. The pool closes with the humble domestic coda to Allan's solitary return to Sweden: a fox, a beloved cat, a dynamite trap gone wrong, and the nursing home that started the whole adventure.

The supporting cast, close calls, and quieter turns of fate.

Bolt threatens a centenarian at the bus station and demands he guard an oversized locked suitcase.

Allan strikes Bolt unconscious with a wooden plank to stop him from shaking Julius by the ears.

Julius announces over breakfast that Bolt has frozen to death while Allan calmly compliments the perfectly cooked eggs.

Estabán volunteers with the Republican communists in Spain and is killed by the very first mortar round fired.

Benny removes a twig wedged beneath Sonya the elephant's toenail and arranges antibiotics, earning The Beauty's admiration.

Allan and Vice President Truman bond over a drunken celebratory meal and receive word that President Roosevelt has died.

Allan tricks Bucket into stepping backward into a pile of elephant dung and then commands Sonya to sit on him.

Corrupt Chinese soldiers seize Jiang Qing and plan to exploit her, prompting Allan to secretly devise a rescue.

Allan meets imprisoned Anglican priest Father Kevin Ferguson in a Tehran prison cell and recruits him as his interpreter.

Allan reveals the secrets of building an atomic bomb to Soviet physicist Yury Popov during a vodka-fueled submarine voyage.

Allan insults and taunts Josef Stalin during a state dinner and is sentenced to thirty years in a gulag.

Allan and Herbert Einstein disguise themselves as a Soviet marshal and his driver to cross the border into North Korea.

Bolt's body surfaces near Djibouti and Bucket's crushed remains are identified in Latvia, collapsing the triple murder case.

Allan's group presents Prosecutor Ranelid with an outrageously implausible story that he has already declared them innocent to disprove.

An Indonesian government official approaches Allan on a Bali beach and asks him to help the country build a nuclear weapon.

This pool traces the precise moments of decision and revelation that alter the course of events, beginning with Bolt's fatal mistake of leaving his suitcase with a stranger and ending with a new dangerous proposition on a Bali beach. Allan's impulsive loyalties — switching sides mid-war, rescuing enemies' wives, and freely sharing nuclear secrets over vodka — each set off consequences that span continents and decades. Key turning points include Allan's drunken insult of Stalin that earns him thirty years in a gulag, and the discovery of two bodies abroad that suddenly collapses a seemingly airtight murder case. In the present, the group's most decisive moment comes not in a confrontation but at a breakfast table, when the prosecutor arrives and is outmaneuvered by a century-old man pretending to be senile. The pool ends where the novel's greatest irony rests: the man responsible for nuclear weapons in three countries is asked, once again, to do it all over.