Joel Dicker

The Enigma of Room 622 Joel Dicker

A burnt-out thriller writer desperate to regain his creative spark becomes intrigued by a decade-old unsolved murder at a glamorous Alpine hotel in this meticulously crafted novel--a matryoshka doll of a mystery built with the precision of a Swiss watch--from the internationally bestselling author of The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair.

One December night, a corpse is found in Room 622 of the Hotel Verbier, a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. An intense police investigation begins, yet few leads are found. Time passes, and without any breaks in the case, public interest wanes.

Years later, Joël Dicker, Switzerland's novelist extraordinaire, arrives at the Verbier to recover from a bad breakup, mourn the death of his longtime publisher, and hopefully begin a new novel. While trying to solve the puzzle of his next book, Joël's expertise in the art of the thriller put to the test when he decides to play Sherlock Holmes and look into the hotel's long-unsolved murder case. He finds his Watson in Scarlett, a beautiful aspiring novelist staying in the next room, who joins Dicker in the investigation.

Meanwhile, in the wake of his father's passing, Macaire Ebezner is poised to take over as president of the largest private bank in Switzerland. The succession captivates the news media, and the future looks bright--until it doesn't. The bank's board, including Lev Levovitch--Geneva's very own Jay Gatsby--has other plans, and Macaire's triumphant rise to the top soon becomes a race against time.

The Enigma of Room 622 is a diabolically addictive thriller in which a love triangle, a power struggle, shocking betrayals, and deadly envy play out against the backdrop of a not so placid Switzerland, as the truth twists and turns into something most . . . unexpected.

Translated from the French by Robert Bononno