The strange truth about a publishing sensation

'The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair'

By Joel Dicker

Penguin

644 pages, $19.21 in major bookstores

ONE of the publishing successes in the last two years is The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair, a mystery novel originally written in French by Swiss writer Joel Dicker. Though the English version has just been published, the novel has already been translated into 32 languages and has sold two million copies in Europe.

French, German and Italian journalists, among others, have fallen over each other to heap praises on the novel. They describe it as "bre…