Illusion

When you want to drastically change your life, the surest way is to leave everything behind and go to the wilderness, so welcome to the ski resort Val-Carrios, where only a small staff remains for the summer. Untamed nature, not a soul for miles around—what could be more healing for a broken heart than that of Hugo, who has just gone through a tough breakup? But from the very first days, Hugo begins to notice that something is not right. An ominous mansion looms over the resort, and its owner never shows up. Hugo is plagued by terrible visions, something that has never happened to him before. His colleague disappears without a trace. Something unknown but clearly dreadful lurks in the forest. Everyone, except for Hugo, seems unaffected by all this. Is he going crazy? Has he unwittingly stumbled into the heart of a conspiracy? Or onto the set of "The Shining"? Or perhaps this is a horrific trick? But who is the magician here, who is the naive spectator—and who is the victim? Maxime Chattam is the author of detective thrillers and noirs that sell in millions of copies in France and have become bestsellers in a couple of dozen other countries. Chattam studied contemporary literature and criminology, initially inspired by Stephen King and Thomas Harris, and ultimately became a figure in French detective literature rivaling Jean-Christophe Grangé and Franck Thilliez. His new thriller "Illusion" gradually and inexorably leads the reader deeper into a bleak labyrinth, where monsters and new traps await around every corner, and there may be no escape to the light at all. For the first time in Russian!