For a synopsis that references great mystery and thrillers, I was disappointed by this book. I really enjoyed the first couple pages when the mystery is revealed that there is no room 622. I was in! But then, we get chapters within chapters. It was like inception within a book of jumping back and forth between timelines and a book within a book. I just felt there wasn't a lot of mystery and it took way too long to get to the intrigue.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Well written kept me turning the pages kept me guessing.A book and author I will be recommending.Thanks for my copy #netgalley#harpervia.

Dicker built an intricately plotted mystery that comes together like a set of Russian dolls. He, himself, is a character, writing a novel about a murder in the titular room of a Swiss mountain hotel. He moves back and forth in time, changing readers’ expectations and putting them in a context that changes all assumptions. There is a large cast of suspects and revealing the killer is just one more twist. It is simply smart and very ingenious. That said, I didn’t connect with the story. This seldom happens to me, I was invested in the plot, I needed to know what was going to happen and I didn’t see many of the turns. Some required a considerable suspension of disbelief, so that may have been my problem. My other problem was connecting with the characters. One especially has such a turn in the end as to seem unbelievable. But I also was invested in them, which sometimes made me change my allegiances in the middle of a chapter. I found some parts repetitive, and maybe it could have been a little shorter. So I’m stuck writing this review, because this is a novel that I enjoyed profusely, but not completely. The best way I can describe it is that it engaged my brain, but left my heart cold. Even if the very last part, including the closing of the book, is probably one of the most beautiful sentences I’ve ever read. I guess this is Literature masquerading as popcorn fiction.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#HarperVia!

A famous Swiss writer who is mourning the death of his longtime editor and the end of a love affair goes off to a. Lovely hotel for an escape. He meets a fellow guest, Scarlett, and they become intrigued by an unsolved murder which took place in room 622. The murder relates to the succession at one of Switzerland’s most prominent private banks. This is a very complex tale switching between time periods and characters. I nearly stopped half way through but prevailed. It was quite clever and satisfying at the end.

I honestly do not know where to start with this book review. First, this book has been a very good lesson to me in how I should approach requesting books on NetGalley: I did not realize that this book was over 600 pages long until I was approved for and had downloaded it. I finished it solely out of spite and a desire to not have it negatively affect my NetGalley feedback rating.
This book has a very cute cover, but the story fell completely flat. Joël (the character) is cliche and stereotypical, his relationships with women are caricature. Every aspect of this story is bumbling, there are wild explanations with no substance to every problem. It is clear that the author was very fond of his late publisher, the book is dedicated to him and he appears as a character. However, this tribute would be better edited down to a short story.
This book is not for me, and frankly, I don't know who it would be suited for.

The final lines of The Enigma of Room 622 are, “for life, like a novel, must be an adventure. And adventures are life’s vacations.” If, as the transitive property suggests, novels are like vacations, this novel is like a work trip to Vicksburg Mississippi in August. It’s overlong, uncomfortably humid, smells kinda funny, and no one really wants to be there. I said to a friend when I first got this book, “it's either going to be terrible, or some fantastic nonsense.” Unfortunately it was the former. The bottom line is, don’t read this book. If you’re tempted; if you’ve been looking at this book and you think that you might want to read it despite that warning, let me have a chance to talk you out of it.

I try very hard to think of someone who would enjoy every book I read and review. But I cannot recommend this book to anyone--it's just bad. The translation is clunky, the characters are flat, it’s pretty sexist, and the plot... I read a lot of science fiction. I have reviewed a lot of science fiction on this blog. I particularly enjoy science fiction with convoluted and ridiculous plots. This plot! I can only describe it as Dan Brown by way of Scooby Doo. It does not strain disbelief--this is a full and complete muscular tear. This requires season ending surgery. Now I might have been able to find it in my heart to forgive the ridiculous plot that would need multiple industrial forklifts to achieve suspension, but this ridiculous terrible book seemed to think it was clever. It took itself so seriously. It was trying to be about grief and trauma and not about the fact that the Scooby Doo writers would have turned it away for being too far fetched.

No matter what you’re hoping to find in this book, it’s not there. If you want a clever murder mystery, read Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle instead. If you want weird financial crime--read Bad Blood. If you’re looking for international conspiracies--hell go read actual Dan Brown and not this knock off brand. Real Dan Brown is also somehow less sexist than this manages to be.

Not that real Dan Brown is a paragon of female liberation. But this book is fundamentally uninterested in women except as they are prizes for men to win, or providing sex or withholding sex from the author insert character. Come on--did no woman read this book and point this out?!!? (Don’t answer that question, it will probably just depress me). The most prominent female character who doesn’t sleep with or pine after the author insert character is fought over and manipulated by the men in this book in a way that indicates the author fundamentally does not believe women have any agency or free will at all. Ew.

This book is full of itself, sexist, unbelievable, and uninteresting. It’s also somehow over 500 pages long. I can think of much better uses of your time. Surely there’s some paint to watch dry or some grass to watch grow. I read it so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.

The publishers gave me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. They certainly got one.

I really loved Joel Dicker's "The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair" a few years back, which is what interested me in picking this one up, as did the author-in-the-story trope. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me for a number of reasons and I didn't finish it. The main problem for me was the slow pacing that left me not wanting to stick with it to the end. That being said, I do generally like books about authors and it's important to keep in mind that this is a translation, so there is always the possibility that certain nuances in the original writing have been lost. I wouldn't tell anyone to stay away from it, I just thought it was a more challenging read than I expected and it may not be everyone's cup of tea. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Starts out very slow, but the fact that the identity of the murder victim isn't revealed until past halfway through the book gives you incentive to keep reading. And the last half is filled with twists and turns that keep you guessing. But the flat, one-dimensional characters, numerous pages about Dicker's relationship with his French editor, constant jumping back and forth in the story's timeline, and the needless meta twist at the end make this a long, hard read.

I have never read this author before but seeing the cover and reading the blurb I was excited to jump into the mystery and explore a new world; Unfortunately, didn’t care for this story at all.

The expectations I had for the story line, the characters, the plot, and the mystery were so far off. The story was so disjointed, the characters one dimensional, the mystery was so buried under the mess of the rest of the story that I didn’t care for solving it at all, and the cliches were too many to ignore.

The main character spends so much time reminiscing about his recently deceased mentor and explain how much of a man's man he is that I couldn’t get past the unlikable aspects to enjoy what might have been. Not to mention the random time jumps and the stereotypical characters.

I am fully willing to admit that I just might not be the right audience for this and that happens. I received an ARC via NetGalley and Harper Via and I am leaving an honest review.

Joël Dicker is a well known Swiss writer. In the Enigma Joël starts as himself - a well known writer who is suffering from writer's block and from a breakup. Joël's mentor has just died and he has decided to take a vacation to try to get back on track. While in a very fancy Swiss hotel, Dicker meets a new potential love interest and while advising her on writing, she discovers an old murder that took place in room 622. The rest of the book revolves around the pair learning more about the murder and attempting to solve it. Many, many characters and plotlines are introduced which come together at the end. If you like homages to Agatha Christie, and large, sprawling mysteries, then The Enigma of Room 662 is for you! #HarperVia #NetGalley #TheEnigmaofRoom622 #Dicker

A pompous effort hindered further by a soulless translation, it is rare to encounter a novel where everything is working against itself, and I genuinely don't know who could find enjoyment out of Joël Dicker's The Enigma of Room 622 (the US edition).

I'm still at a loss on the novel's tone, and in large part is due to the mismatched translation by Robert Bononno; there's a constant disconnect between the basic, rudimentary phrasing, and the larger-than-life comedic scenarios; every jokey exchange is delivered flat, and emotion never resonates because I can't determine whether the original intent is going for bombastic melodrama, or subtle authenticity. As a result, I'm not at all engaged in its tangled web of deceit, infidelity, and corporate power struggle, which while admirably complex, feels cartoonish and definitely overstays its welcome at nearing 600 pages.

The novel also goes meta-fiction with a parallel narrative featuring Joël Dicker (the author himself) researches the titular (fictional) mystery, experiences writer's block, and reminisces about his (real life) mentor/editor Bernard de Fallois. This material could be too foreign for the US audience to fully 'get' and appreciate, as neither the author nor the editor has the same name recognition here comparing to their home country. It doesn't stop there, The Enigma of Room 622 goes even further with a 'meta-squared' maneuver near the end; while I actually enjoy for how obnoxious it is, it has absolutely no relevance or stylistic correlation to the plot before it.

The Enigma of Room 622 might be the most bloated, messy novel I've read this year. In large part I truly believe is due to the horrendous translation, which misses out on all the nuances of the French language and European attitude. I'm curious to seek out reviews of this novel in its original form, because reading the US edition alone, this is beyond a slight career misfire from an established, award-winning author, this is embarrassingly bad.

I felt like this could have been a very successful YA book but it feel short as a adult thriller. The characters were childish and not fleshed out enough for me to enjoy

This book started out well but got very confusing. The constant time changes did not help. The book is a very interesting concept and just needed to land the execution a little better.

I finished this book although I considered not finishing. I think there were a few too many time shifts and it got a bit confusing at times. I thought the mystery was well pieced together. Stories about families and expectations are always intriguing.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Harperviabooks for this ARC.

Started out well but then started petering out. Dragged quite a bit. There were plenty of twists and turns but they are hampered by slow writing or maybe the text that didn't translate well.

This was a horrible read. A total DNF. And that very rarely happens. All the major character does in the beginning is smoke incessantly and try to hook up with women. I just couldn't get into the book. I'm giving it a 1 star.

I was happy to have the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book as I had read and enjoyed his previous book, The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair. I thought this one was even more clever, and I liked the premise and Swiss locales. There are countless red herrings in the story, and they cause the book to be longer than the typical mystery, but I didn't think there was much that could have been edited out. Maybe the author anticipates another 10-part mini-series based on this book, but I would have been happier with a shorter book. Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me access to this book which I highly recommend.

I’ve never read anything like this. This feels like a book for people who love the movie Burn After Reading. It is so intricate in the details and surprisingly, through all of the plot twists I couldn’t find any holes for flaws. It is really well thought out and planned. My 2 complaints: I felt that some of the descriptions could have been more efficient “show the reader instead of telling the reader” this just made the book long. Second, at times I thought the translation to English was off. Things like idioms shouldn’t be word for word translations. I thought that was a little distracting at first.

A good mystery book with a fair amount of twists and turns. The flashbacks kept the plot moving along while keeping you on the edge of your seat.
Thank you Netgalley and HarperVia!

Interesting book with a great story line. Kept me reading wanting to know what would happen next. The main character is intriguing. Recommend reading! Thank you NetGalley !