On a summer night aboard an expensive deserted yacht drifting among the Stockholm archipelago, a drowned woman is found in dry clothing. The next day, a man dies in an apartment in the affluent area of Östermalm. How did he manage to hang himself from a lamp hook in a completely empty room with very high ceilings, where there’s nothing to climb on? And yet the police commissioner is convinced: this is suicide.
A chain of dark events unfolds rapidly. Strangely, it is connected to the violin that belonged to the great Paganini and to a fatal contract bearing his name.
And it’s in vain that two lovers try to find salvation on deceptively welcoming islands among the fjords. The unfeeling killer—everywhere and unbreakable—methodically follows their trail, moving toward his goal literally over corpses.
“The Paganini Contract” by Lars Kepler is a continuation of the detective series whose beginning was set by “The Hypnotist.” In this new thriller, the terrifying tangle of crimes unravels once again by the familiar protagonist, Jona Linna—an ex-criminal commissioner with a mysterious past and an unclear future, a talented detective with the appearance of a film hero and a tendency toward melancholy.
Lars Kepler’s novels have become bestsellers around the world; they are considered the benchmark of Scandinavian thrillers. In particular, the authoritative magazine Time named “The Hypnotist” one of the ten most important books of 2010 worldwide. The film adaptation directed by Lasse Hallström of the eponymous novel “The Hypnotist” was submitted by the Swedish Film Academy for an Oscar.