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Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan, he is a fanatic to the point that he decides to open his own Hitchcock inspired Hotel. And what better way to celebrate the hotel being open for 1 year than to invite his old college friends who were part of a Film Club. Never-mind that they have not seen each other since College, Never-mind there is some bad feelings and blood among the group. They will appreciate what he has created here, especially when Hitchcock like events start to happen, including a body.
This is the first book that I have read by Wrobel, so I was not sure what to expect going in. This was a slower pace than I thought it would be and then the ending seems to be a bit of a whirlwind with everything being revealed. I wish things would have progresses a bit faster with some of the backstory and what Zoe kept accussing Alfred of as we are the readers are left in the dark the majority of the book. It is this history that is key to a lot of what is going on in the Hotel and I wish Wrobel would have sprinkled a bit more of the juicy stuff throughout the book instead of having most of it come out in the last third. I think readers would still not see all the twists coming that Wrobel has in this last third but I think that it would ahve help the book's pacing and intrigue level.
If you are looking for and atmophere it book, this book is for you. Wrobel really catches the essence of Hitchcock with the tension and drama that plays out in this book. I could perfectly picture the hotel and the creepiness that it was designed with all in a balck and white scope to make it feel like a hitchcock movie.
You have to be okay with Multiple POV as each character in this books basically gets the same amoutn of page time as others do. I don’t really know if i actually liked any of the characters in this book, they all say some pretty horrible things to each other, especially towards Alfred and it seems to me a lot of them were still stuck in that College/high school frame of mind. Alfred is by far the most interesting character in the book and Wrobel writes him as such a way where you can’t help but think he is diabolical and manipulative in every way. The other characters got more interesting the book went on.
Alright, straightup this book and twists did now go how I thought it would at all. You know at the beginning there is going to be a body but you don’t know who or when in the story it is going to occur. I think that Wrobel did a great job of having basically everyone up for grabs of who was going to end up dead.
This was a good book, but I think the slowness in the beginning really hurts it and I will admit that I was not picking it up as much as I would have if it was a faster paced thriller. I still think that it is one that people will enjoy espically if they are Hitchcock fans and like a more atmosphereic read.
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