A young girl is found murdered in the isolation room of a center for troubled teenagers. Her skull is shattered, and her hands are over her face, as if she were playing hide and seek with the murderer. In an auxiliary building, the night shift nurse is found dead. She has been killed with a hammer.

Although an internal investigation is pending against him, Inspector Yuna Linna is ordered to observe the investigations as a mere spectator. He quickly discovers that one of the center's residents, Vicky Bennett, has disappeared. In her room, he finds a bloodied blanket and a hammer stained with blood.

Shortly thereafter, news breaks of a stolen car in which a four-year-old boy was present. Everything points to Vicky being responsible for the abduction. Thus begins a race against time for Yuna Linna. What is Vicky Bennett capable of? And who is this woman who insists on calling the police claiming to be a medium and seeing the ghost of the dead girl?

After The Hypnotist and The Paganini Contract, The Fire Witness also remained at the top of the bestseller list in Sweden for many months and has been translated into more than 30 languages. As the newspaper Dagens Nyheter wrote, "you start reading this thriller on the subway on your way home, you continue reading while eating your dinner, and you don’t stop until the early hours of the morning."

"Larsson was destined to have many successors... Kepler is undoubtedly the best..." Lev Grossman, Time

"A masterful, chilling, atmospheric mystery novel..." Kirkus Reviews

"Inspector Linna reduces our sleeping hours!" Pier Mario Fasanotti, Mobydick

"A good police novel gives us a puzzle, a better one captures a puzzle within another puzzle, and a top one unfolds a multitude of puzzles within each other. This is the case with The Fire Witness..." New York Journal of Books

"Master class in the detective novel!" The Boston Globe