BOOK BLURB
THERE ARE WORSE PLACES THAN HELL…
Hotel Beresford is a grand, old building, just outside the city. And any soul is welcome.
Danielle Ortega works nights, singing at whatever dive bar will offer her a gig. She gets by, keeping to herself. Sam Walker gambles and drinks, and can’t keep his hands to himself. Now he’s tied up in a shoe closet with a dent in his head that matches Danielle’s broken ashtray.
The man in 731 has been dead for two days and his dog has not stopped barking. Two doors down, the couple who always smokes on the window ledge will mysteriously fall.
Upstairs, in the penthouse, Mr Balliol sees it all. He can peer into every crevice of every floor of the hotel from his screen-filled suite. He witnesses humanity and inhumanity in all its forms: loneliness, passion and desperation in equal measure. All the ingredients he needs to make a deal.
When Danielle returns home one night to find Sam gone, a series of sinister events begins to unfold. But strange things often occur at Hotel Beresford, and many are only a distraction to hide something much darker…
BOOK REVIEW
The Beresford is a hotel with faded gentile grandeur that still sees many guests stay for maybe one night or two. There are also guests who rent studio style rooms by the week. It’s those guests that capture the attention of the top floor residence Mr Balliol. He is somewhat of an enigma to those who live inThe Beresford, he also seemingly runs the place from behind the scenes. Carol is the general manager and Keith her right hand man between them they help to keep the place running smoothly despite the unusual comings and going’s. Behind its facade the hotel houses a grisly secret and it’s one that’s people will kill for to keep it that way.
Having read the The Beresford book by the author I was keen to read this the second book in the series. Yet it’s more a prequel as it concerns The Beresford when it was a hotel not an apartment block. The comings and going’s are still strange and spooky in that as one room is empty within minutes someone is there to take it. When one staff member is killed almost immediately someone is coming and doing their job. Overseen by the manager Carol who has her own reasons for being there the hotel knows how to keep its secrets. It’s a place that can and does steal the very souls of those who enter into agreements made on its premises under the watchful gaze of the all seeing Mr Balliol. As always the author has written a novel that cannot be categorised into just one genre. It is thrilling, spooky and very very engrossing, almost as if the hotel wants to capture the soul of the reader themselves. The fight or maybe should I say the balance between good and evil will be played out within the walls of the hotel and the pages of the book. Prepare yourself for a long session with the book as you will not want to leave the hotel once you have booked in. A perfect accompaniment to these dark dreary nights curled on the sofa or wherever you read your books. The author has written yet another masterpiece of fiction that will send you in to another dimension, where worlds, lives, loves and souls will fight for survival.
My thanks to Anne Cater and Orenda books for my tour invite and copy of the book. As always they are my own thoughts and opinions on the book.
STAR RATING 5
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series and the critically acclaimed, mind-blowingly original Detective Pace series, which includes Good Samaritans (2018), Nothing Important Happened Today (2019) and Hinton Hollow Death Trip (2020), all of which were ebook bestsellers and selected as books of the year in the mainstream international press. Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for both the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2020 and the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Hinton Hollow Death Trip was longlisted for Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize, and was followed by four standalone literary thrillers, The Beresford, Psychopaths Anonymous, The Daves Next Door and Suicide Thursday. Will spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his children.
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