ILLEGAL CONSUMPTION OF NARCOTIC DRUGS, PSYCHOTROPIC SUBSTANCES, THEIR ANALOGUES CAUSES HARM TO HEALTH, THEIR ILLEGAL TRAFFICKING IS PROHIBITED AND ENTAILS LIABILITY ESTABLISHED BY LAW. In the new thriller by Frank Thilliez "Vertigo," the author manages to create a chilling and simultaneously suffocating atmosphere of a trapped snare. The hero of the novel, mountaineer Jonathan Thuilier, who has conquered the main peaks of the planet, one night suddenly finds himself chained to a rock in a strange cave whose exit is blocked. Around him are cold, ice, darkness, his dog, and two strangers: one, like Thuilier, is chained to the rock, the other can move but wears an iron mask with a coded lock that will explode if he crosses the red line in search of escape. The unwilling captives are lost in guesses: how and why did they end up here, who manipulates them? But the main question is: to what degree of despair and rage can a person go to survive?