Appartement 816 (Apartment 816)

“[The killer] wonders if, before killing, he had ever thought of killing. The answer is yes, of course. I would say: like everyone else. Everyone has wanted to kill someone at some point. We are all more or less killers, right?”

A pandemic has been spreading around the world for three years. In France, citizens are in lockdown.

It is in this context that Didier Martin, a 41-year-old accountant, writes in his diary - not on paper, but on the furniture, objects and walls of apartment 816, where he lives with his wife Karine, their son Jeremy and their dog Bruno.

Didier Martin's diary seems to tell the ordinary life of a confined man: the weather outside, his daily rituals, the description of his apartment, his family and what each one is going through... But between the lines of this narrative, the infernal descent into the mind of an unhinged man gradually takes shape.

Press

“Olivier Bordaçarre’s writing in this novel is almost hypnotic. Short, striking, disturbing, chilling, it does not let us go. We are captivated by the madness of this ordinary man who could be your neighbor during a lockdown.”

Alexandra Schwartzbrod, Libération du 18/11/2021