“Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold”
- Book: The Hotel
- Location: Maine
- Author: Emily Shiner
‘The Hotel’ and ‘The Wife In The Photo’ are the latest two books in a run of some eighteen psychological thrillers new to me author Emily Shiner has written. Having only just finished reading ‘The Wife In The Photo’, which had a very distinctive structure to the storyline, I was unsurprised that ‘The Hotel’ followed an almost identical format. If something works for you, why change it? This strong style statement certainly makes for some edge-of-the-seat reading, although for me, as a reviewer, it does make summing up the storyline without spoilers, very difficult to do well!
You really do need to read this one for yourself, because, as I found out the hard way, you can’t trust anything you read in this potted premise…
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Abby and Mark Hardy were childhood sweethearts, now married for over twenty years. Together with their ‘rainbow baby’ two-year-old Henry, they are the ten year, live-in owner / managers of a remote B&B, perched high on a cliff, facing the ocean with a forest backdrop, in the fictional town of Oyster, Maine. ‘The Saltside Inn’ is predominantly Abby’s project, with Mark busily off supplementing their seasonal income, as an odd-job / handyman. Increasingly concerned about their finances, as inexplicably, their business account seems to be haemorrhaging cash, and with Mark seeming to be growing evermore distant from her, Abby decides that they should offer winter sale packages in an effort to boost off-peak occupancy.
Once she has managed to persuade Mark that her plan has ‘legs’ and might be quite lucrative for their bank balance, Abby places an advert and is surprised to receive a booking within hours. Lottie, Tim and Chelsea Rowe, not only want to stay for three weeks during the winter, but they want to rent the entire property exclusively, with the exception of the private bedroom suite belonging to the Hardy family, which is on its own locked floor and Abby insists remains out of bounds to guests.
However, Abby is unprepared for the reaction she gets from Mark, when she tells him the good news, especially when he discovers the identity of their guests, although he denies knowing them. Abby wants the Rowes to feel welcome and to treat their extended stay as a home-from-home experience, with the two families eating together and sharing the living accommodation, which all goes to plan for the first few days, before strange things begin to happen around the place, making for an unpleasant atmosphere for everyone, with rather more sinister implications for the genial hostess herself.
Tensions become so awkward that Abby and Mark consider asking the Rowes to leave early. However, a massive storm blows in, cutting the The Saltside Inn off completely, with its biting gale force winds and feet of driving snow. Then the power is cut too and everyone is on tenterhooks, especially when they are not all together, in plain sight of one another. Against all the odds, baby Henry goes missing, so a search of the house and land is organised, as it is clear he won’t be able to survive the arctic conditions for more than a few minutes, if by some fluke, he has managed to make his way outside. An unstoppable chain of events is now set in motion, which can really only end one way – and inevitably does. Some of their number make good their escape, whilst for others, being forced to remain behind, has a whole different set of consequences!
You can run, but you can’t hide…
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The most important thing to remember here, is that nothing is as it seems and no one is who they purport to be, in this dark psychological thriller / domestic noir storyline of revenge and vengeance. Well structured, multi-layered and highly intense, it is broken down into short, easy to navigate chapters, which are narrated in the multiple voices of what is, a very minimal cast of characters. All the participants in this unpredictable, shockingly twisted plot, spend the entire time hinting at the many secrets each of them possesses, without actually ever saying what they are, making this a compelling guessing game of epic proportions. As with the previous Emily Shiner book I read, one big revelation is fairly easy to work out during the midway section of the story, however those tiny offshoots of lies and deceit just keep multiplying and growing, entwining themselves around the untruth which began the entire chain of events, tying me, as an inconsequential reader and unfortunate bystander, up in knots.
As indicated, the cast of characters in this locked room style storyline, is small, which is probably just as well as they are all so unreliable, complex, often volatile and never quite authentic. Both individually and collectively, they exude an air of misery and doom, which was as cloying and claustrophobic as the snow which blankets the landscape around them. There are not even any small glimpses of levity or happiness amongst them, with even a mostly miserable baby Henry seeming to pick up on the tense atmosphere, made worse I am sure, by the lack of any synergy between the dour and lugubrious adults who surround him and become the centre of his small world. I can honestly say I disliked them all and was unable to find few redeeming features to recommend any of them, which I am certain is just as the author had planned, as on occasions, it made it quite easy for me to take my eye off the ball for a few moments, just as some vital clue was dropped into what little conversation there was between them.
Emily also doesn’t really focus on location in her stories either, which whilst it keeps everything tightly focussed on the plot and characters, can be a little frustrating for any ‘armchair readers’ like myself. However, the fictional Saltside Inn and its immediate surrounding area, is described in graphic detail, so it needed little imagination from me to picture myself trapped there, in the middle of nowhere, in the intense cold, with darkness all around me, not trusting any of my companions, and becoming increasingly scared of my own shadow.
Would I read any of Emily’s many previous books? You bet! Although I shall probably take a short breather first, so that her unique storytelling technique is vibrant and fresh for me, next time I open the pages.
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