The Enigma of Room 622: The devilish new thriller from the master of the plot twist

Description

"Dicker has the first-rate crime novelist's ability to lead his readers up the garden path" Sunday Express It all starts with an innocuous curiosity: at the Hotel Verbier, a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps, there is no Room 622. This anomaly piques the interest of the writer Joel Dicker, Switzerland's most famous literary star, who is staying at the hotel to recover from a bad breakup, mourn the death of his longtime publisher, and begin his next novel. Before he knows it, Joel is coaxed out of his torpor by a fellow guest - Scarlett, a captivating aspiring novelist with a nose for intrigue, who swiftly uncovers the reason behind Room 622's deliberate erasure: an unsolved murder. Meanwhile, in the wake of his father's passing, Macaire Ebezner is set to take over as president of the largest private bank in Switzerland. The succession captivates the news media, and the future looks bright, until Macaire learns that the bank's board plan to appoint one Lev Levovitch - Geneva's very own Jay Gatsby - in his place. What seemed a race to the top has just become a race against time . . . A Russian doll of a mystery crafted with the precision of a Swiss watch, The Enigma of Room 622 is a diabolically addictive thriller in which a love triangle and a power struggle - fuelled by envy and betrayal - play out between Geneva and the Alps, as the truth twists and turns into something no reader will see coming. Translated from the French by Robert Bononno

Joel Dicker was born in Geneva in 1985, where he studied Law. The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair was nominated for the Prix Goncourt and won the Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie Fran aise and the Prix Goncourt des Lyceens. It has sold more than 3.6 million copies in 42 countries. The Baltimore Boys, at once a prequel and a sequel, has sold more than 750,000 in France. The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair is now a major SkyWitness series starring Patrick Dempsey.

In book after book, this astonishingly talented (and astonishingly young) author approaches genres we might dismiss as shopworn - the campus mystery, the family drama, the out-of-the-past whodunit - and with a flourish, whips them into spectacular new shapes. And in The Enigma of Room 622 - as you'll learn early on, there is no Room 622 - Dicker salutes Agatha Christie even as he drops the reader through one trapdoor into another, so that by the end, we doubt we've ever read another novel quite like it. (We haven't.) Fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley will hug this book in between chapters; the many readers who love Anthony Horowitz's mysteries will celebrate. And me? I'll be reading it again -- A.J. Finn Dicker has the first-rate crime novelist's ability to lead his readers up the garden path * Sunday Express * Joel Dicker really knows how to tell a great story * Valeurs Actuelles * The cleverly jigsawed plot pays homage to Agatha Christie * Booklist *