Although
not yet open to the public, Manderley Resort is already known for its tight
security. Here, a movie star can hide away during a breakup, a hedge fund
manager can secretly meet a mistress, and a dignitary who's committed terrible
atrocities can check in, comforted by the fact that his "transgressions
are of no interest." Days before the grand opening, however, a housekeeper
on the 15th floor is trying to clean a blood stain out of the pristine white
carpets. Add to this that the electrical system is not fully wired and the
dishwasher has been mysteriously sabotaged. And, oh, yeah, there is a killer in
a
Halloween
movie mask wielding a large knife and an all-access key card that allows him to
enter (almost) every room and ride the top secret elevator. The new manager,
Tessa, an icy, beautiful and, of course, haunted alpha female, has her work cut
out for her as the staff of the Manderley is murdered one by one in this
incredibly witty, darkly comic debut novel by Gina Wohlsdorf. Told from the
perspective of a mysterious observer in the hotel's security room, the murder
and mayhem unfold in the video feed of multiple hidden cameras, creating a
literary split screen on the page—a clever, effective device that
breaks the page into two, three and four columns of simultaneous action. An
ingeniously plotted, postmodern granddaughter of an Agatha Christie novel.