March 2023 - Mystery Book Club - Past Titles - LibGuides at Westwood Public Library

"The Paradox Hotel" by Rob Hart

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart
Call Number: SCI FIC Hart
January Cole's job just got a whole lot harder. Not that running security at the Paradox was ever really easy. Nothing's simple at a hotel where the ultra-wealthy tourists arrive costumed for a dozen different time periods, all eagerly waiting to catch their "flights" to the past. Or where proximity to the timeport makes the clocks run backward on occasion--and, rumor has it, allows ghosts to stroll the halls. None of that compares to the corpse in room 526. The one that seems to be both there and not there. The one that somehow only January can see. On top of that, some very important new guests have just checked in. Because the U.S. government is about to privatize time-travel technology--and the world's most powerful people are on hand to stake their claims. January is sure the timing isn't a coincidence. Neither are those "accidents" that start stalking their bidders. There's a reason January can glimpse what others can't. A reason why she's the only one who can catch a killer who's operating invisibly and in plain sight, all at once. But her ability is also destroying her grip on reality--and as her past, present, and future collide, she finds herself confronting not just the hotel's dark secrets but her own. At once a dazzlingly time-twisting murder mystery and a story about grief, memory, and what it means to--literally--come face-to-face with our ghosts, The Paradox Hotel is another unforgettable speculative thrill ride from acclaimed author Rob Hart.

Do you enjoy time travel as a trope in a book? If you do, when do you consider such a plot twist successfully executed?
Do you actually care if the time travel consequences make sense?
Every murder mystery begins with an act of murder. How was the murder in this book? Was it credible or creative? How about shocking or memorable?
Great characters make great stories. Were the characters in this book engaging, fully developed, and emotionally complex? Who was your favorite character?
The mystery-suspense genre has an expectation of being a “page-turner.” Was this book suspenseful? Did you become anxious as you read it—quickly turning pages to find out what happens next? At what point could you not put the book down?
What does this book say about science and technology and their effects on today’s society or the future?
Is the purpose of the book to be optimistic about the future or to serve as a warning?
What did you think about the recurring color blue (uniforms, ceilings, floors, book cover, etc.)? Was it meant to represent something or just to be a calming effect as January is told?
Which character(s) did you relate to the most? Why?
What did you think about the repeating passages? Was there a reason January saw those future events instead of others? What did they represent?
What genre would you classify this novel as?
A good mystery is a challenge to the reader to solve the crime before the sleuth. Did you solve the mystery and identify the murderer before the big reveal in the end?
Did you enjoy the spin on the mystery genre or would you rather stick to classic mysteries?

The author of The Paradox Hotel, as well as The Warehouse, which sold in more than 20 languages and was optioned for film by Ron Howard
He is also the author of the Ash McKenna crime series, which wrapped in July 2018
Wrote the short story collection Take-Out, and co-wrote Scott Free with James Patterson
The former publisher for MysteriousPress.com and the current class director at LitReactor. He has also worked as a political reporter and the communications director for a politician and was a commissioner for the city of New York
Currently working on his next solo novel, as well as Dark Space, a sci-fi novel he is co-writing with Alex Segura
Lives in Staten Island, N.Y.

"I had gone to this interactive theater experience in New York called Sleep No More which I’m a huge fan of. It’s structured as a play that you explore, following different actors and different scenes. It starts in a hotel and expands out: all of sudden you’re in a graveyard or a psych ward or a forest. And I thought, “Man! Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a hotel where you could go into a room and it was five minutes later or ten minutes ago?” I went home and opened a Google doc and wrote “time-travel hotel,” and then closed it. I do that whenever I have an idea – I’ll start a Google doc and rough something out: sometimes I come back to it, sometimes I don’t. This one kept sticking with me, especially because I love time-travel stories.” (Crime Reads)
Optioned for TV by Working Title (no release date available)

The Warehouse

Take-Out

Ash McKenna series

Short Stories

“Diffusion” — Dogmatika

“Second Chance” — Shotgun Honey

“Ginny Tonic” — NEEDLE: A Magazine of Noir

“The Best Job in the World” — Crime Factory

“Happy Ending” — Thuglit

“The Gun With Two Triggers” — Kwik Krimes

“A Blow to the Head” — RELOADED: Both Barrels Vol. 2

“Pont des Arts” — Helix Literary Magazine

“How to Make the Perfect New York Bagel” — Thuglit

“Knock-Off” — NEEDLE: A Magazine of Noir

“Foodies” — Shotgun Honey

“No Good Way Around” — All Due Respect

“Confessions of a Taco Truck Owner” — Thuglit

“Drone” — Thuglit

“513:47:22:11” — Joyland

“Making it Easy” — Shotgun Honey

“How the Game is Played” — Occupied Earth

“Pretty Princess” — Shotgun Honey

“Bad Beat” (w/Alex Segura) — Polis Books

“The Santa Con” — Cruel Yule

“Last Request” —Thuglit

“Creampuff” —Unloaded

“Bhut Jolokia” —Medium Short

“The Gift of the Wiseguy” —The Mysterious Bookshop

“The Gas Chamber” —Hard Sentences

“Like the 309” —Just to Watch Then Die

“Take-Out” —Mystery Tribune

“The Hug” —Killing Malmon

“Lake Paradox” —Mystery Tribune

“Bar Wall Panda” —Collectibles

“No Honor Amongst Thieves” —Lockdown

“The Other Foot” —Both Sides

Non-fiction

We Need More Wonder Women – Daily Beast

On Overcoming a Deadly Case of Writer’s Block – LitHub

Eight Writing Lessons from Hamilton: The Revolution – LitHub

10 Authors with Tattoos Inspired by Their Own Books – Electric Literature

A Story and a Scar – Pediatric Congenital Heart Association

Yes, Road House is a Modern Day Western – Birth.Movies.Death

Four Decades of the Condor – Birth.Movies.Death

Self-publishing has become a cult – Salon

Book Bag: Five Great Books About New York City – Daily Beast

Sweet Potato Girl – Nailed

From Page to Screen with Death Wish: The Case of the Disappearing Conscience – Criminal Element

Grist for the Twitter Mill – Crimespree

Art Inspired by an Unknowable City – Bookpage

The End of Apocalypse – Powell’s

Five Things I Learned Writing New Yorked – terribleminds

Top 10 Words That Need To Die, Immediately – LitReactor

Republishing A Lost American Classic or Why I Love My Job – LitReactor

Tom Spanbauer: A Primer, and A Review Of His Latest Novel, ‘I Loved You More’ – LitReactor

Eleven Tips For A Successful Book Signing – LitReactor

10 Really Obnoxious Things Writers Do – LitReactor

Eight Tips For Increasing Your Writing Output, From A Very Busy Writer – LitReactor

Recursion by Blake Crouch
Call Number: FICTION Crouch
Reality is broken. At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that's sweeping the world is no pathogen. It's just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery--and what's in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself. In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth--and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery . . . and the tools for fighting back. Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront their enemy--before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos.
Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell
Call Number: FICTION FERRELL
Life isn't easy for the time traveller who's seen it all. He's already toured the entirety of human history and the outside world. That's why this time traveller celebrates his birthday partying with himself. The year he turns 39, though, the party takes a stressful turn for the worse. Before he even makes it into the grand ballroom for a drink he encounters the body of his 40 year-old self, dead of a gunshot wound to the head. As he follows the clues, he discovers rampant paranoia and suspicion among his younger selves, and a frightening conspiracy among the elders.
Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty
Call Number: Fiction Lafferty
From idyllic small towns to claustrophobic urban landscapes, Mallory Viridian is constantly embroiled in murder cases that only she has the insight to solve. But being surrounded by death also makes you a suspect and a social pariah. So when Mallory gets the opportunity to take refuge on a sentient space station, she thinks she has the solution. However, when aliens and humans alike begin to die, the station is thrown into peril. Stuck smack-dab in the middle of an extraterrestrial whodunit, Mallory has to solve the crime - and fast - or the list of victims could grow to include everyone on board.
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Call Number: FICTION Mandel
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core. Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him. When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.
The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
Call Number: FICTION Mascarenhas
In 1967, four female scientists worked together to build the world's first time machine. But just as they are about to debut their creation, one of them suffers a breakdown, putting the whole project--and future of time travel--in jeopardy. To protect their invention, one member is exiled from the team--erasing her contributions from history. Fifty years later, time travel is a big business. Twenty-something Ruby Rebello knows her beloved grandmother, Granny Bee, was one of the pioneers, though no one will tell her more. But when Bee receives a mysterious newspaper clipping from the future reporting the murder of an unidentified woman, Ruby becomes obsessed: could it be Bee? Who would want her dead? And most importantly of all: can her murder be stopped? Traversing the decades and told from alternating perspectives, The Psychology of Time Travel introduces a fabulous new voice in fiction and a new must-read for fans of speculative fiction and women's fiction alike.
Drunk on All Your Strange New Words by Eddie Robson
Call Number: Fiction Robson
Lydia works as translator for the Logi cultural attaché to Earth. They work well together, even if the act of translating his thoughts into English makes her somewhat wobbly on her feet. She's not the agency's best translator, but what else is she going to do? She has no qualifications and no discernible talent in any other field. So when tragedy strikes and Lydia finds herself at the center of an intergalactic incident, her future employment prospects look dire--that is, if she can keep herself out of jail! But Lydia soon discovers that help can appear from the most unexpected source...
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
Call Number: FICTION Stevenson
Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate. I'm Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I'd killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it's a little more complicated than that. Have I killed someone? Yes. I have. Who was it? Let's get started.
Last Year by Robert Charles Wilson
Call Number: FICTION WILSON
Two events made September 1st a memorable day for Jesse Cullum. First, he lost a pair of Oakley sunglasses. Second, he saved the life of President Ulysses S. Grant.
In the near future of Robert Charles Wilson's Last Year , the technology exists to open doorways into the past--but not our past, not exactly. Each "past" is effectively an alternate world, identical to ours but only up to the date on which we access it. And a given "past" can only be reached once. After a passageway is open, it's the only road to that particular past; once closed, it can't be reopened. A passageway has been opened to a version of late 19th-century Ohio. It's been in operation for most of a decade, but it's no secret, on either side of time. A small city has grown up around it to entertain visitors from our time, and many locals earn a good living catering to them. But like all such operations, it has a shelf life; as the "natives" become more sophisticated, their version of the "past" grows less attractive as a destination. Jesse Cullum is a native. And he knows the passageway will be closing soon. He's fallen in love with a woman from our time, and he means to follow her back--no matter whose secrets he has to expose in order to do it.
The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters
Call Number: FICTION Winters
What's the point in solving murders if we're all going to die soon, anyway? Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There's no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact. "The Last Policeman" presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job--but not Hank Palace. He's investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week--except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

Mystery Book Club - Past Titles: March 2023

"The Paradox Hotel" by Rob Hart

QUICK LINKS

CONNECT WITH US

Westwood Public Library

Main Library

Islington Branch