The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Alfred Smettle is the proud founder, owner and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, an Alfred Hitchcock-themed hotel settled amongst the rugged landscape of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. It’s beautiful, yet secluded.
The Hotel has been a labor of love for Alfred, a life-long Hitchcock fan. With the 1-year anniversary of the hotel’s founding approaching, Alfred decides it would be a great time to invite his best friends from college for a reunion.
Of course, he hasn’t really spoken to any of them in 16-years, but that doesn’t stop him from reaching out and extending the invitations.
For their part, the five invitees, once all members of the Film Club at their college, are surprised to get the invitations. It just seems strange after all this time, but curiosity gets the best of them and they all accept.
Zoe, Samira, Grace, TJ and Julius arrive one-by-one at the hotel and the strange weekend begins. As the Reader you get to know each of these characters. The story jumps around between perspectives, as well as past-and-present timelines.
It is a fully unlikable cast with a ton of interpersonal drama and secrets among them. Personally, I enjoy that kind of set-up, but if you are someone who needs to like your characters, you may not. There’s not much to like here.
This is in part a murder mystery, although it does take some time to get there. You know pretty early on that not all is going to go right with this weekend.
Even though I knew someone was bound to die, I still didn’t see it coming. Not the person, not the circumstance. Every single one of the remaining people had a motive, which did successfully keep me guessing.
I’ll be honest though, after the first few chapters, I wasn’t sure I was going to like it, but IMO, Wrobel pulled it off in the end. There were some fun twists and reveals.
It may have helped that I am a big Hitchcock fan, so have watched all the movies mentioned and understood the many references. I’m not sure I would have had quite the same experience with it if I didn’t have that background.
At the end of the day, I feel like this is a solid showing for Wrobel. I would recommend it to people who enjoy secluded locations with set cast of characters. I also, of course, would recommend it to any other Alfred Hitchcock fans.
Thank you to the publisher, Berkley, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I’m interested to see what Wrobel delivers us next. All her books have been quite distinct from one another, but I like her in this Murder Mystery space.