Before using this hefty book as a doorstop this autumn, enjoy the 600 pages of small-town intrigue, Russian-doll narrative, backwards chapters and a story that has such a twist I almost called in dead to work so I could stay home and finish it.

Touted by one critic as having all the elements of a Great American Novel (not bad for a book written by a Swiss author in French), it follows literary celebrity Marcus Goldman, panicking about the looming deadline of his second book after becoming rich and glorified for his first. Distraction comes in the form of his old mentor, the renowned author Harry Quebert, who hired some gardeners to dig up his lawn and uncovered the body of 15-year-old Nola Kellergan, a local girl who disappeared more than 30 years ago. With the manuscript of Quebert’s famous book, The Origin of Evil, found buried with her, Quebert is the main suspect – but Goldman believes he is not Nola’s killer. So, avoiding his rabid publishers, Goldman heads to the town of Aurora, New Hampshire, to find out the truth.

Unwrapping the layers of this book is a delight: delving into the history of Harry, Nola, and everyone else who passed through Aurora in 1975 is best done on a comfortable couch with a cup of tea and instructions to everyone to leave you alone. Joël Dicker, young and dashing, has whipped up quite the frenzy himself, and writers writing about writers writing about writers creates an interesting overlap. Some moments are prone to melodrama, but these are easily forgotten among the beautiful literary touches – and cresting the final roller-coaster hill of this book is something else. The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair is worth discovering.

Fiona Hardy