Some papers say he died in New York—but his family told the BBC that he died in Switzerland "after his condition suddenly got worse... He had been doing very well." And the NYT changed their location-of-death from New York to Switzerland earlier today.

This is pure speculation, but... is it possible that Mr. McLaren (a bomb-throwing genius, agent provocateur, dashing brute, and one of my childhood heroes) paid a visit to the Dignitas group in Switzerland, which helps people from around the world make their conditions "suddenly worse"?

Although the assisted suicide market is largely German, as of October 2008, approximately 100 British citizens had travelled to Switzerland from the UK to die at one of Dignitas' rented apartments in Zurich.

Britain just went through a big legal case about whether the son of conductor Edward Downes would be charged for helping his parents check in to Dignitas to die.

McLaren was terribly progressive and terribly iconoclastic. It's not hard to imagine him checking out on his own terms, on his own schedule. And some internal confusion about how to communicate the manner and location of McLaren's death could have—again, wild speculation—led to this mix-up about which continent his corpse is resting on.

"Either way," as Abby writes in the comments, "rest in peace (or whatever you prefer), Malcolm."