Craig, Daniel Edward: Murder at Hotel Cinema

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In this second installment in Daniel Edward Craig's Five-Star Mystery series, hotelier Trevor Lambert has moved to LA to work as general manager at a hip new, Hollywood-themed hotel. It's a bad fit for Trevor. The owner is more interested in attracting trend-setters and nightclubbers than in serving up a top-notch hospitality experience. And the possibility of the hotel enjoying the sort of reputation Trevor would like is lost on opening night, when drugged-up starlet Chelsea Fricks washes up dead in the hotel pool. As with the other books in Craig's series (Murder at the Universe, Murder at Graverly Manor), Murder at Hotel Cinema is more about Trevor's experiences trying to marshal the staff and deal with crises than it is about amateur sleuthing. This time around, however, a second, more personal mystery, unrelated to the hotel murder, is laced through the story.

I didn't enjoy this installment in the series quite as much as I did the other two. In part I think this is because the hotel itself is a less interesting character: the Universe, in Craig's first book, was a much more interesting locale. Parts of the book, too, were over-long, and while the resolution of the main mystery was interesting, the ending was a bit over the top. I'm beginning to think that Trevor should settle down in a single hotel so that he can be surrounded by a larger cast of recurring secondary characters. Currently the book's only regular characters, other than Trevor himself, are Trevor's mother and his colleague Shanna Virani. They're okay, but neither is really compelling. If Trevor were to stay in one place--provided that the setting is a special one--the stories could come to him--Love Boat-like, say--rather than the reverse, and we'd get to know and care more about the supporting cast.

Comments

[Kevin Brown]

1.

This is a very nice review! I love the hotel in rugby, their services are great. You guys should try it.