For forty years, the mystery of the disappearance of a young relative won’t let an aging industrial magnate rest—so he makes the last attempt of his life: he commissions a search from journalist Mikael Blomkvist. The reporter takes on the hopeless case partly to distract himself from his own troubles, but soon realizes that the problem is even more complex than it seems at first glance.
How is the long-ago incident on an island connected to several murders of women that occurred in different years in different parts of Sweden? What do quotes from the Third Book of Moses have to do with it? And finally, who—at the end—tried to take Mikael’s life when he came too close to the truth? And even more so, he could not have guessed that the investigation would lead him straight into a living hell among an idyllic, peaceful town.