Title: The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair
Author: Joël Dicker (translated from the French by Sam Taylor)
Release date: May 7th, 2015
Publisher: MacLehose Press (imprint of Quercus Publishing)
Rating: 5/5 stars
I had been eyeing this book on bookdepository for a while, but since I never really took the time to figure out the premise of this book I never picked it up. But when I saw this book on the shelf at Boekspot Hoog Catharijne (which is a place where you can pick up a free book or leave a book you finished for someone else to enjoy) when I was there with Inge I decided to give it a go. And I am so glad I did!
Summary:
This story follows the lives of up-and-coming writer Marcus Goldman, and his mentor Harry Quebert.
In the summer of 1975, 30-something-year-old Harry Quebert falls in love with a fifteen-year-old girl. At the end of said summer, the girl mysteriously disappears. Thirty-three years later her dead body is found in Harry’s yard.
Marcus wants to clear Harry’s name but it proves incredibly difficult. He starts his own investigation concerning the young girl’s death. He discovers that the more he searches for answers, the more unanswered questions come to the surface. And that nothing is what it seems in the small town of Somerset, New Hampshire.
Characters:
Now let’s get into the characters. I’d like to start off by discussing Marcus Goldman. He published his very first book about two years before this story begins. It is a bestseller, and suddenly Marcus goes from being a semi-regular guy to being a rich writer who can throw wild parties and dates movie stars. This new and exciting life seems to be far more important than writing the next book. And after a while, his publisher gets fed up with him. If he doesn’t deliver a new manuscript soon, Marcus will be sued and lose everything he’s worked for. Desperate for help, Marcus contacts his mentor Harry Quebert who he has always been able to count on ever since they met each other in college. When Marcus was Harry’s student. I enjoyed Marus as a character for the most part. He could be a bit annoying when his ego took over but apart from that, I liked him.
Now let’s get into Harry Quebert. He is a not so successful writer who decides to take the leap of faith and move from New York to Somerset. Where he will write the bestseller he has always hoped to write. Here he meets fifteen-year-old Nola Kellerman. They fall in love, but as Harry is in his mid-thirties at the time, the romance is doomed to fail. I don’t really wanna give any more backstory about Harry because I feel like you will get more out of this book if you don’t know too much going into it. For that reason, I will also not give you my opinion of Harry Quebert.
Likes:
Oh my, where do I start? I just overall very much enjoyed this book. I loved the characters! Pretty much all of them, even the ones you’re supposed to hate. I liked how real they felt.
I also liked how the story is set up. Dicker takes you from present to the past and vice versa and I felt that really added a layer to the story. You got to see Somerset from the 70’s to the late 00’s which meant that we are given a lot of back story.
The last thing I am going to mention in this section of the review are the plot-twists that Dicker carefully sprinkled throughout the book. I made the story so that you never really knew what to expect. I have to admit that my predictions on who I thought was guilty, were all wrong.
Dislikes:
As you might be able to grasp from the 5-star rating I gave this book, there wasn’t a whole lot I disliked. The only thing that comes to mind right now is the fact that I found some of the characters a bit dumb at times. I get that Dicker needs the perpetrator to make some mistakes in order to be able to reveal his/her identity. But I was a bit annoyed at the mistake that gave away the culprit of the crime that was unsolved for thirty-three years…
My final thoughts:
I loved this book! I would highly recommend it to anyone who is in for a good mystery novel that keeps you on your toes.
Lots of Love,
Lotte
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