I really enjoyed listening to The Enigma of Room 622 by Joël Dicker.

I particularly loved how Joel places himself centre stage in this book as a fictionalised version of himself. He stays at the Hotel Verbier and is intrigued to see that on his floor there are rooms 621, 621a and 623. He decides to investigate why the rooms were numbered in that way. He joins forces with Scarlett, an aspiring author also staying at the hotel, who discover that a murder took place in Room 622 (now 621a) and they set out to investigate the unsolved murder.

The story moves between Joel and Scarlett’s investigation of the murder in Room 622, what happened in the lead up to the murder fifteen years ago and what happened after the murder. There are further strands to the story including Joel’s literary past, past and his relationship with his real-life editor Bernard de Fallois.

I thought Chris Harper was a great narrator. He has a very gentle calming voice and great range with accents for the various characters.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Quercus Audio, for the audio-ARC and introducing me to Joel Dicker. Joel Dicker was not an author I was familiar with, but I will read his other earlier translated works.

Joel Dicker doesn’t use one word when he can use twenty. The story jumped back and forth and there were threads all over the place. Yet despite that I actually loved it. I’ve read one of his books before (H Querbert affair) and it was very long but it doesn’t detract from the story. I have found myself thinking about his previous book and this one long after I had finished it.

This was one of the best starts to a thriller I’ve read in a long while.

One night in December a body is found in suite 622 of the Hotel Verbier, a luxury hotel in the Swiss alps. Years later writer, Joel Dicker stays at the hotel and is intrigued by the room numbering system 621, 621A, 623- where is 622?

What follows is the story of Joel investigating the crimes from 15 years earlier and the story behind the murder.

It’s a twisty tale of a board of bankers, spoilt men, lots of backstabbing, poison, gunshots, caviar and champagne.

Yes it gets ludicrous, yes completely ridiculous but it was an enjoyable and fun read. Full of intrigue and twists it keeps you guessing until the end.

Thanks you @netgallery and @quercusbooks @maclehosepress for this advance copy in exchange for an honest review

After a promising start, this book became utterly infuriating, picking up and then dropping storylines, leaping backwards and forwards in time.
Opening with an affair between a novelist and his neighbour, I was a little disappointed when this ended abruptly and the story was uprooted to a hotel in Geneva.
Here, the writer takes up with another vivacious woman and we are immediately plunged into a complicated story about missing hotel room numbers.
Suddenly their flirtations seemed to involve running around doing lots archive research and I realised that my attention was drifting.
*Then* we jump back in time and the story focuses on an obnoxious young Swiss banker who wants to inherit his father’s company.
From this point it became increasingly convoluted and really rather dull. Perhaps it was meant to be satirical- or perhaps not.
I stayed listening for another couple of hours but there was a large question mark hovering over my head. What was going on? Why should I care about these people? What happened to the storyline about Room 622?
I hate giving up on a book, especially when the premise is intriguing, but life is short. The best I can say is that the narrator had a lovely clear voice.

*Many thanks to Joel Dicker, Quercus Audio, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
A long and complicated murder mystery featuring the author who accidentally finds the idea for his next book.
In my opinion the book is definitely too long. There are a lot of characters whose personal stories are told as the book progresses and while every character counts, it seems that there is too much to remember. On the whole, I enjoyed this audiobook, mainly due to very good job done by the narrator.

This is the longest audio book I’ve listened too. But I was engaged for every minute. (And to be honest I’m disappointed it had to come to an end!) I loved the little hints, and major twists, in the story as it gentle and sometimes raucously plays out over fifteen years - backwards and forwards in the time-line and the many characters parts in the story. Each time a little more information is released, each time a new thought came to me about who the culprit was. But there is so much more here than just a simple whodunnit I praise Joël Dicker for the effort and ingenuity that went into producing this wonderful enigma; a story of life, love, jealousy, intrigue and maybe redemption set in the world of Geneva’s high end banking and hotels. Thank you to Quercus Audio and NetGalley for the audio ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.

Exquisite!

This is my first novel by Joël Dicker, and it won't be my last.

A fictionalised version of the author is staying at a hotel to recover from a bad breakup and mourn the death of his longtime publisher and friend. He is staying in room 623 - beside him are room 624 and 621A....what happened to room 622? We're on a journey together to find out, alongside room 621A's occupant an attractive and eager Scarlett, who pushes the writer to find out the mystery and write a novel about it.

We go back and forth between the present day, with our duo investigating what happened, and various points in the past that led up to the renaming of room 622 - a murder.

So the writing is brilliant - the atmosphere of both the remote hotel and Geneva shines though in the writing. The plot is everything I want in a mystery - a story within a story, multiple mysteries inside one another, well-used flashbacks, a big cast of characters, shocking moments, trying to figure out what happened alongside someone in the story....and lovely prose. It all combines together beautifully. I adored it. I adored it even more as the previous mysteries I've read were....not so great. This restored my hope in the future of mysteries. I just want to gush about this book and get everyone to read it.

The book *does* have a large cast of characters and multiple time-jumps. It is also very much a mystery NOT a thriller. Don't go into this expecting a thriller. Bare these in mind when deciding whether or not this book is for you.

The narration was brilliant - despite the large cast of characters, he was able to differentiate between everyone's unique voice. I never felt out-of-time despite the time and location jumps - this is sometimes something I struggle with in audiobooks. It was a storyteller narration, the pace of his reading and style of narration really brought extra atmosphere to the book. It is very easy to listen to and lose time in the story - I couldn't wait to get back into the story when I needed to stop. I would highly recommend the audiobook version to enjoy this.

So beautifully written, I didn’t want to put it down. I felt like I was being lead down a trail with breadcrumbs of flashbacks and moments in present that make me jog further along to find that end result.

A great thriller/mystery for someone who is starting to get into the genre.

The Enigma of Room 622 is a complicated story set in Switzerland and telling the tale of a murder in the Hotel Verbier. A writer is researching for his new book and the story flits between his current day writing and the events of the past.

Firstly, this is NOT an easy read. Not only is it incredibly long, but there are lots of characters and timelines which can make it complicated at times. I felt that it was quite repetitive in places, but this book has been translated into English, so it's hard to know whether some of the writing style is lost during this process.

Overall, I did enjoy the story but it just felt a bit too long winded to be more enjoyable.

My thanks to NetGalley and the Publishers for sending me this ARC in return for an honest review.

This book wasn't what I expected.

SYNOPSIS:

"One night in December, a corpse is found in Room 622 of the Hotel Verbier, a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps. A police investigation begins without definite end, and public interest wanes with the passage of time. Years later, the writer Joel Dicker, Switzerland's most famous literary ingenue, arrives at that same hotel to recover from a bad breakup, mourn the death of his longtime publisher, and begin his next novel. Little does Joel know that his expertise in the art of the thriller will come in handy when he finds himself investigating the crime. "

MY THOUGHTS:

- The first page hooked me in. I loved the premise.

- However I struggled, perhaps due to the style of writing/translation, to stay hooked with the story.

- This felt much longer than it needed to be, but perhaps because I wasn't as sold into the story as I hoped.

- I went in expecting a thriller, but it was quite different to that.

- Some of the male and female characters seemed a little stereotyped and not in a good way.

Overall not for me, and I do wonder how much has been lost in translation and my perceptions of what the book was going to be.

I ended up stopping the audiobook around 50% because so just couldn’t get into the story. It seemed far too complex and I just couldn’t follow it. The narrator was ok but I found the characters where not different to each other - his voice seemed the same for each character. The story seemed like a mystery within a mystery within a mystery and I may try this book in its physical form instead of the audiobook

Thank you Quercus Audio, MacLehose Press and Netgalley for this alc in english.

I read this book first time 2 years ago in italian traslation. I have not wrote the review at that time and I am so glad I have got this opportunity to listen to this book. It was one of my best that year and I think is one of the best also this year.

I am always fascinated how Joel put so many details together, this time also him self into the book and the story of his publisher and everything that belong there.

And there is a murder that has to be resolved and Joel has a great helper. A jounalist that he meet in a hotel and they start their investiagation. Going back and discovering who died, how died. And every character has an own story to tell. Nothing is like it seems and everything is so well hided and so nice concluded.

A perfect story for me. So glad I reread this. Fascinting once again.