This started out really strong — the framing device is really fun, and the jumps around in time are an interesting way to experience the story. But the twisty plot was a bit too twisty for me. It's tough to get a grip on the characters, and I would have liked the setting to be more vividly rendered. Thanks for the opportunity to read this one!

I found the premise of this novel to be intriguing. A mystery author stumbles on a murder that happened in the hotel he’s staying in, and he begins to investigate and try to solve it. It is a very complicated plot with lots of characters, certainly not all who they appear to be. It’s a long book and it took me awhile, but I did enjoy it.

A story about succession. A banking family with impeccable pedigree. A lost love. A history of a room that doesn’t exist. It’s delicious, thoughtful look at how families survived through the war. A mother who understands the importance of appearances. She goes to extremes to ensure her daughters don’t share her fate financially. She feels that should be enough. Yet one daughter is just as determined to have life her way.

Such a quirky mystery, that I couldn’t help but fall in love with! The author did an incredible job carrying us along and painting such authentic detail of each and every character. I enjoyed following Macaire’s journey into becoming president, watching the sacrifices he was willing to make and made to achieve his goal. My only complaint was that it seemed a bit long.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Gripping and thoroughly entertaining. A recommended purchase for collections where mysteries and thrillers are popular.

Every once and awhile I think to myself, “Let’s spread our book reading wings a little bit, Kaley, and try something a little different.” Sometimes it works and I find a book I love. And sometimes…well…sometimes it leads me to hate reading a mystery that seemed like it should be a good fit for me and is just really, really not. That happened with The Enigma of Room 622 by Joël Dicker. I don’t even really know what I read, to be honest.

The book hit my radar at a HarperCollins Canada influencer event. I thought it sounded a little different and like a mystery I could really sink my teeth into. What I ended up getting was a convoluted mystery that the author inserted himself into. I think? Or maybe he was just writing the mystery and turning it into a novel? Or maybe he just made the whole thing up? Smarter readers than I may have it all figured out, but I still don’t know what was real and what was a novel within the novel. And that kind of drove me bananas.

I also didn’t like how the story was written. I don’t know if it was because it was a translation (from French and translated by Robert Bononno) but it felt so choppy and I couldn’t find a good rhythm. And it wasn’t just how the sentences were constructed that I had an issue with. I just didn’t find that the flow of it made any sense whatsoever. It jumped around in time and I couldn’t keep track of much of anything. Then there were a million reveals at the end of the book so I didn’t even get a satisfying conclusion.

I didn’t particularly care about the characters either. I doubt I was supposed to like them but I’m a reader who likes to at least find the characters intriguing even if I don’t particular like them. I don’t think I would have cared if any of them had gone to jail for the murder. As it is, I’ve totally forgotten who committed the crime.

No, The Enigma of Room 622 was not a winner for me. I’m sure there’s an audience for Joël Dicker’s novel but I, unfortunately, was not it.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, HarperCollins Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

The Enigma in Room 622 was definitely a breath of fresh air if you are tired of the same formulaic murder mystery. It bounced around between characters as well as flashed back to the days before the murder and after the murder. It really made me think which I enjoyed, however it was also easy to get confused if you let your mind wander. I would definitely recommend and will be looking for other books by this author.

Wow. This book is not like anything I’ve read before. So many threads – no telling where they’ll lead. Never where you think, for sure. It’s nearly 600 pages, but the payoff is worth it.

It’s got a little bit of everything. Story inside a story. Unrequited love. Backstabbing businessmen in a struggle for power and money. Isolated closed-circle whodunnit. A cold case to unravel.

Nobody is who they seem to be. Who is Scarlett? Who is Sinior Tarnogol? The Enigma of Room 622 will keep you guessing.

It seems oddly anachronistic at times. I kept double-checking dates. Olga and her daughters Irina and Anastasia in particular. They lived by the philosophy that marrying well was a woman’s only option.

The author is Swiss, and the book was originally written in French. The translation to English is flawless, but it still has the undefinable feel of a translated novel.

I received this Advanced Reader Copy of The Enigma of Room 622 from NetGalley and HarperVia in exchange for an honest review.

I got about 1/3 of the way through this book and will not be finishing it. Unfortunately, I find it unreadable. The tone of the writing is flat, uninteresting, (although this may be a factor of the translation), the plot is simply boring (I am not interested in the banking world), and the characters act in ways that are quite simply, cartoonish. I was expecting a complex layered plot and I understand there are some twists coming. Unfortunately I can’t work my way through the text to get to them.

Joel Dicker’s novel, The Enigma Of Room 622 is an absolute homage to Agatha Christie and is flawless with mystery upon mystery upon mystery within the pages of this unexpected imaginative story with an astonishing ending.

When a writer named Joel loses his girlfriend and then his publisher who was also a close friend suddenly dies, he tries to start a new novel, just as his assistant reminds him, she will be taking vacation which he of course forgot about. So, he decides to get away also and try and pull himself together to continue his work. He travels to a plush resort in the Swiss Alps called Hotel de Verbier hoping to relax. But upon checking in he notices something very strange. There seems to be no Room 622. Now, there is a 621 and a 623. Of all the rooms not to be listed, why is room 621 not there?

As he is mulling this over, he bumps into a woman named Scarlett who is as intrigued as he is, and she convinces him that they should investigate this strange enigma. And their curiosity is piqued deeper when no one at the hotel will give them any information as to why there is no room 622.

So, left on their own, they begin to put together what happened all those years ago. They discover there had been a murder in the room one weekend during an elaborate Bank Gala years ago where the new President of a large bank was going to be announced. The murder was never solved and in order to keep the reputation of the hotel in good standing, they wiped out all traces (including the room number) of the horrible event. Then Scarlett convinces Joel to write a book about the missing room, and the murder.

As they investigate, they come up with a cast of characters who could possibly be responsible for the murder. They begin interviewing witnesses from that weekend. What the reader soon discovers through going back in time years before and days before the actual fateful Bank Gala is the complexity of all the lives of the people connected to that weekend. What they will find as they dive into the characters is a foray of lies, deceits, espionage, greed, trickery, jealousy and affairs.

They begin to feel with all these clues, they themselves may really be able to solve the mystery. But soon begin to realize that not everything is as it seems. As they race around Europe following the past lives of the suspects, the two discover they have an incredible working bond. Excited about solving the mystery, they are also a bit hesitant because they know it will more than likely be the end of “them”. What will they finally discover?

The Enigma Of Room 622 is an incredible page turner, with stunning details no one could have ever seen coming, well, maybe Agatha Christie could have, but no one else! The ending is both surprising and wonderful at the same time!

Thank you #NetGalley #HarperVia #TheEnigmaOfRoom622 #Joel Dicker for the advanced copy.

How many twists a book can hold?! Apparently, as many as Joël Dicker wants to put in a story. You are bombarded with one twist after another and once you thought you have seen it all, bam! another one. I love a good twist to work my mind, but I’m not sure if I loved having this many. I have to give the credit where it’s due: although it was full of “let’s take another direction”, the story wasn’t confusing or sending the reader down the rabbit hole. Piece that made up the twists were very cleverly placed. You can guess something would come up, but not sure what.

Room 622… you were hiding so many secrets, remnants of so many traumas, and glimmer of hope. What happened in there on that night was both spontaneous and well planned. Someone was murdered. Someone hid something. Someone benefited from it without lifting a finger. Everyone eventually got what they want even though each had momentary doubt about it. It was up to this writer and a mysterious neighbor to figure out the whole operation. They needed to find out who pulled the trigger and who knew what. Because it would make hell of a story to tell.

One thing that I’m still trying to figure out about the book is the subplot with editor Bernard. Was it really an ode to him or did his story serve another purpose in the book? His death was the one of the reasons he decided to take a break, but I think it wasn’t adding much to the story.

Thank you Harper Collins and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I honestly almost gave up this book around 30% but I just kept pushing through. It played out like a movie with the many twists and turns. I would take this with a grain of salt on the believability aspect but it’s so fun.

Someone was murdered in Room 622, and were trying to find out who died, how they died and why. I think this was one of the funnest book I read in a while!

DNF at 62%

Unfortunately, there is something lost in translation. The bones of a great book is here but I feel like the translation of this book is ruining it. The tone is difficult to figure out, the comedy is flat or cringe. I imagine with the right translator this might be a great book.

I hate rating books I didn't finish.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Joel Dicker writes a murder mystery novel that stretches over 15 years. In the vein of Anthony Horowitz' Hawthorne series, Dicker is a novelist character inside his own novel, and like Horowitz, takes on the role of investigator. Set mainly in the high-stakes banking world, and focusing on a murder in an elusive hotel, the book intertwines upon itself with unreliable characters and layers of deception.

Well done
4.2/5

I like slow moving mysteries, but this is brutally boring to the point of being unreadable.

There’s been some talk that the translation is bad for this book, so a lot of the problems may not be the fault of the author. But perhaps it’s just not for me.

It’s a pretty convoluted plot but the intricacy isn’t intriguing. There’s no atmosphere, no sense of place, and no real suspense.

The mystery itself largely revolves around a number of people who have a role in jockeying for a promotion to an executive position at a bank, which is just about the dullest backstory possible.

Add to that the fact that everyone in the book is unlikable and the humor either got lost in translation or just doesn’t land at all, and you’ve got a recipe for an exceptionally overlong mystery that isn’t worth your time.

There are loads of mysteries out there of a similar style that are infinitely better. Read one of those instead.

I struggled with this book. It's long and confusing at times and wasn't for me. I don't know if things were possibly lost in translation? I ended up having to dnf this book.

Although this book wasn’t necessarily my cup of tea, I can see the appeal for those that like Agatha Christie or the type of books where you can tell something is amiss and you figure it out with the main character. There’s a dead body, a duplicate room that used to have a different number and a questionable successor to the bank.

Picked this book up on a whim from NetGalley - who doesn't love a good whodunnit? - and was incredibly impressed. I couldn't put this thing down. The plot here is so damn convoluted, and there are so many characters, and so many time jumps, and yet... I never felt confused! I knew exactly what was happening and couldn't wait to keep reading.

The prose leaves much to desires here, it's incredibly plain. I am not sure if that's from the translation or what, but it's definitely very basic/simple prose. Honestly, it reminded me a bit of the way that The Count of the Monte Cristo is told! I don't need fancy prose to go with my convoluted mystery, I had plenty of fun as is!

Highly recommend for the mystery fans out there!

Stories that have been translated into another language can lose its original impact. I haven’t read this is it’s original language but I feel the impact probably didn’t chang. The book was very intriguing and captivating. It held me the whole time with all the twist and turns. The author pulls you into this world with easy. I highly recommend it.

This isn’t my type of book but I didn’t realize it before I started. People who will love this: Anthony Horowitz fans, fans of older classic mysteries; and people who enjoy a character driven story. Anyone who is looking for a fast-paced mystery should skip this. I’m reviewing this with 4 stars based on the fact that I know some readers will devour this book.