The White Room - De witte kamer

Winner of the Golden Nugget Thriller Award 2019

You wake up on a cold floor. Everything around you is white. The lack of windows makes it impossible to tell whether it’s day or night, and how many days have passed. Your brain doesn’t register structure or color and starts to create its own. You hallucinate. You forget which memories are real and which are imagined. You’re stuck. You’re going crazy. And you’re not getting out of here alive.

Three months ago, Middle East-correspondent Jeffrey Holt disappeared without a trace. Now, his body has been found: emaciated, with its eyes gouged out and the number 5 carved into its stomach. Detective León Coeur rushes to the crime scene, his niece – criminology student Hanna – in tow.

It turns out Holt was subjected to a ruthless Middle-Eastern torture technique: suspension in an entirely white room. Why was he abducted and killed? Did he have a lead on the recent terrorist attack in Amsterdam? And is this gruesome murder the end of all this terror, or only the beginning?