Delightful escapist literature. 
 You can't not root for Allan Karlsson. On his hundredth birthday, he makes a break. Determined to die another time in another place than a nursing home, he climbs out the window shod in his slippers, steals a suitcase hoping for shoes, then hops on the next bus leaving town. 
 Way to go, Allan! Trouble is, now, he's on the run from the suitcase gang--on the plus side, thankfully, not alone. Alighting the bus, he lands in the lap of a ripe-for-adventure, kindred soul. Together, the two hack into the suitcase, discover a treasure, dispense with its claimant (a hoodlum hot on Allan's trail), then, taking the loot, embark on a caper purists might label an odyssey with magical realist overtones. 
 At it again! As flashbacks prove, Allan has had these adventures before. A munitions pro, it's no surprise his skills have bagged him powerful friends--and a helpful knack for narrow escapes he and his zany cohorts use to get them through their predicament now. (The elephant, Sonya, not so much.) 
 Oh, Allan. It's simply too absurd! That you, with few ideologies--few needs apart from your vodka supply--should have influenced men like Franco, Stalin, Truman, Churchill . . . Mao Tse-Tung! 
 Who knew? And yet what rollicking fun. Allan, a guy who goes with the flow, whose soft skills--sharp as his knowledge of bombs--have netted him over a hundred years, is the exact pied piper humanity needs when life doles out the need to relax, take a deep breath and lighten up. 
 As the author says . . . 
 "Let's all be kind and have fun as we watch it all sparkle away. Oh, and do tell some harmless lies to spice things up. In the words of my grandfather: 
 "If you always stick to the truth, nobody will bother to listen."" -- Jonas Jonasson