Showing Paganini's Ghost by Paul Adam

This is the sequel to Paul Adam’s novel, Sleeper (USA title, The Rainaldi Quartet), about Cremona violin maker, Gianni Castiglione, and his detective friend, Antonio Guastafeste.

A dazzling young Russian virtuoso performs a sell-out recital on Paganini’s violin in the cathedral in Cremona. Then one of the audience, a shady Parisian art dealer, is found dead in his hotel room, a fragment of sheet music belonging to the virtuoso hidden in his wallet. But how did the dead man get hold of it? And why?

Violin maker Gianni Castiglione is drawn into the murder investigation by his friend, detective Antonio Guastafeste, and the two men find themselves at the centre of a tantalising story of love, deception and greed. Following a trail that leads back to Paganini, his lover Elisa Bonaparte (Napoleon’s sister), Catherine the Great of Russia and a long-lost priceless treasure, Gianni and Antonio must unravel another mystery that has gone unanswered for over a century, one that may hold the answer to the modern-day murder.

Filled with remarkable history and musical lore, Paganini’s Ghost plays at a breathtaking tempo that will keep you reading until the very last page.