Joel gets to the Hotel de Verbier and is assigned in room 623, and he finds it strange that in the corridor there is room 621, 621A, but there is no room 622. Then in the bar he sees a woman who he feels attracted to. It is Scarlett, and soon they meet. When Joel tells her about the strange number of rooms, she encourages to investigate and write a book about it. They learn that a crime was committed in that room.
Then through this investigation we discover new characters. We don't know who was murdered in room 622. Macaire Ebezner is the son of Ebezner Bank's late president. We we first meet him, he is in Spain, and we learn later that he has been a spy for a special department of the Swiss Intelligence Services. When he gets back to Geneva, there is an article in the newspaper about him being the new president of the bank. Since the foundation of the bank all the presidents have been Ebezners, but Macaire's father changed the tradition after Macaire sold his shares of the bank to Signior Tarnogol, who became a member of the board.
Macaire gets to the bank the next day, and Cristina, his assistant, tells him that she has bad news for him. She overheard Signior Tarnogol say that the next president would be Lev Levovitch, who works at the bank too. Macaire is upset and tries to talk to Tarnogol, trying to convince him that he is the better man, and even though at some point he seems to come around, he finally refuses to give Macaire his vote as he realises that he has tried to deceive him.
Lev is a man who came from nothing, and we discover that he and Macaire's wife, Anastasia, are lovers, and Lev wants her to leave Macaire. There are chapters about Lev's life. His father was an actor, convinced that acting was everything for him. His mother left him as they struggled and he refused to find another job. She died when she ran away with a banker and when they were travelling on a helicopter, the aircraft crashed.
Lev's father found a job at the Hotel de Verbier and he was sent to other hotels pretending to be a customer and bringing back information about those hotels to the owner, Monsier Rosen. Lev also got a job at the hotel as a waiter. There he met Anastasia as her mother brought her and her sister to find a rich husband. Anastasia met Lev, and it was love at first sight. Yet, Olga, her mother, pushed her to accept Klaus, a rich man, and as Lev had no money, Anastasia went with him. Klaus mistreated her, and Anastasia called him, begging him to save her. Lev drove to Brussels and picked up Anastasia. In Geneva Anastasia knew the Ebezners and they went there. That is where Lev met Abel Ebezner, who was impressed by Lev, and he offered him a job. We know that is how he got the job, but we don't know how Anastasia ended up marrying Macaire.
Another mystery is why Macaire gave his shares to Targonol. It seems that he did it for something other than money. Now that the weekend when the president will be chosen Macaire finds himself in a pickle. The Swiss Intelligence group P30 tell him that he needs to kill Targonol because the man can't be the next president now that Lev has refused the position. P30 tells Macaire that if he doesn't comply, they have information that he was involved in the murder of a couple in Spain. Targonol knows that Macaire worked for the P30, and he also knows that the group wants him dead. His deal is that Macaire will be president on condition he loses his wife.
I have so many questions: Why did Anastasia marry Macaire in the first place and not Lev? Why did Macaire give Targonol his shares? What did he get in exchange? Who was murdered that weekend? What does Targonol want from Anastasia?
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