The Enigma of Room 622 by Joël Dicker

A Wall Street Journal "Best Mystery of 2022"

A September 2022 Amazon Best of the Month Pick

“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, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

"[The Enigma of Room 622 is an] exhilarating tour de force"–The Wall Street Journal

A burnt-out writer’s retreat at a fancy Swiss hotel is interrupted by a murder mystery in this metafictional, meticulously crafted whodunit from the New York Times bestselling author of The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair.

A writer named Joël, Switzerland’s most prominent novelist, flees to the Hôtel de Verbier, a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. Disheartened over a recent breakup and his longtime publisher’s death, Joël hopes to rest. However, his plans quickly go awry. It all starts with a seemingly innocuous detail: at the Verbier, there is no room 622.

Before long, Joël and fellow guest Scarlett uncover a long-unsolved murder that transpired in the hotel's room 622. The attendant circumstances: the succession of Switzerland’s largest private bank, a mysterious counterintelligence operation called P-30, and a most disreputable sabotage of hotel hospitality. A European phenomenon, The Enigma of Room 622 is a matryoshka doll of intrigue–as precise as a Swiss watch–and Dicker’s most diabolically addictive thriller yet.

Translated from the French by Robert Bononno

JOEL DICKER was born in Geneva in 1985, where he later studied Law. His first novel was awarded the Prix des Ecrivains Genevois. The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (La Verite sur l’Affaire Harry Quebert) was shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt and won the Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie Française and the Prix Goncourt des Lyceens.

SAM TAYLOR is a novelist and journalist who has lived in France for more than a decade. His first literary translation was Laurence Binet's HHhH, which was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.