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-Carlos, where only a small number of staff remains for the summer. The wild nature, no soul for many kilometers around — what could be more healing for the broken heart of Hugo, who has just gone through a difficult breakup?
But from the very first days, Hugo begins to notice that something is amiss. A sinister mansion looms over the resort, and its owner never shows his face. Hugo is haunted by terrible visions, something that has never happened to him before. His colleague disappears without a trace. There is something unknown lurking in the forest, but clearly dreadful. Nobody seems to care about all this except for Hugo. Is he going crazy? Did he accidentally stumble into the heart of a conspiracy? Or onto the set of "The Shining"? Or perhaps it's a terrible trick? But who is the magician here, who is the naïve spectator — and who is the victim?
Maxime Chattam is the author of detective thrillers and noirs that sell in the millions in France and have become bestsellers in a couple of dozen other countries. Chattam studied modern literature and criminology, initially inspired by Stephen King and Thomas Harris, and ultimately became a figure in French detective literature that stands on equal footing with Jean-Christophe Grangé and Franck Thilliez. His new thriller "Illusion" gradually and inexorably leads the reader further into a hopeless labyrinth, where monsters and new traps lurk around every corner, and there may be no way out to the light at all.