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Emma Graham #1
Hotel Paradise
Internationally acclaimed Martha Grimes once again turns her hand to crafting a story of such rich atmosphere and intricate suspense that she transports the reader to a world unlike any other. — A once-fashionable, now fading resort hotel. A spinster Aunt living in an attic. Dirt roads that lead to dead ends. A house full of secrets and old, dusty furnishings, uninhabited for almost half a century. A twelve-year-old girl with a passion for double-chocolate ice-cream sodas, and decaying lake-fronts, and an obsession with the death by drowning of another young girl, forty years before.
Like all important events in the past, there are repercussions and ramifications in the present. In the world as seen by Martha Grimes, those repercussions simmer and seethe and wind their way through hearts and souls. The ramifications can be subtle. Or exhilarating. Passionate. And they can also be deadly.
Hotel Paradise is a delicate yet excruciating view of the pettiness and cruelty of small town America. It is a look at the difficult decisions a young girl must make on her way to becoming an adult and the choices she must make between right and wrong, between love and truth, between life and death. It is a novel with extraordinary range and depth that ultimately becomes a thrilling morality play.
Like all important events in the past, there are repercussions and ramifications in the present. In the world as seen by Martha Grimes, those repercussions simmer and seethe and wind their way through hearts and souls. The ramifications can be subtle. Or exhilarating. Passionate. And they can also be deadly.
Hotel Paradise is a delicate yet excruciating view of the pettiness and cruelty of small town America. It is a look at the difficult decisions a young girl must make on her way to becoming an adult and the choices she must make between right and wrong, between love and truth, between life and death. It is a novel with extraordinary range and depth that ultimately becomes a thrilling morality play.
438 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 23, 1996
242 people are currently reading
1508 people want to read
About the author
Martha Grimes
114 books1,456 followersMartha Grimes is an American author of detective fiction.
She was born May 2 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to D.W., a city solicitor, and to June, who owned the Mountain Lake Hotel in Western Maryland where Martha and her brother spent much of their childhood. Grimes earned her B.A. and M.A. at the University of Maryland. She has taught at the University of Iowa, Frostburg State University, and Montgomery College.
Grimes is best known for her series of novels featuring Richard Jury, an inspector with Scotland Yard, and his friend Melrose Plant, a British aristocrat who has given up his titles. Each of the Jury mysteries is named after a pub. Her page-turning, character-driven tales fall into the mystery subdivision of "cozies." In 1983, Grimes received the Nero Wolfe Award for best mystery of the year for The Anodyne Necklace.
The background to Hotel Paradise is drawn on the experiences she enjoyed spending summers at her mother's hotel in Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. One of the characters, Mr Britain, is drawn on Britten Leo Martin, Sr, who then ran Marti's Store which he owned with his father and brother. Martin's Store is accessible by a short walkway from Mountain Lake, the site of the former Hotel, which was torn down in 1967.
She splits her time between homes in Washington, D.C., and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She was born May 2 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to D.W., a city solicitor, and to June, who owned the Mountain Lake Hotel in Western Maryland where Martha and her brother spent much of their childhood. Grimes earned her B.A. and M.A. at the University of Maryland. She has taught at the University of Iowa, Frostburg State University, and Montgomery College.
Grimes is best known for her series of novels featuring Richard Jury, an inspector with Scotland Yard, and his friend Melrose Plant, a British aristocrat who has given up his titles. Each of the Jury mysteries is named after a pub. Her page-turning, character-driven tales fall into the mystery subdivision of "cozies." In 1983, Grimes received the Nero Wolfe Award for best mystery of the year for The Anodyne Necklace.
The background to Hotel Paradise is drawn on the experiences she enjoyed spending summers at her mother's hotel in Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. One of the characters, Mr Britain, is drawn on Britten Leo Martin, Sr, who then ran Marti's Store which he owned with his father and brother. Martin's Store is accessible by a short walkway from Mountain Lake, the site of the former Hotel, which was torn down in 1967.
She splits her time between homes in Washington, D.C., and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 259 reviews
September 14, 2016
*4.5 stars
I admit it took me a couple days to get into this book. By the third day, though, I didn't want to put it down. It was a very slow paced story, with a lot of extra details on the town or characters. Once I got into the story and really liking Emma, I didn't mind those details. The characters and town were a life of their own. The creativeness of the names of people were something else! You also never knew the name of Emma till the very end. I'm also still trying to figure out what year/decade the story takes place. And the end? I'm still trying to figure it out......
I admit it took me a couple days to get into this book. By the third day, though, I didn't want to put it down. It was a very slow paced story, with a lot of extra details on the town or characters. Once I got into the story and really liking Emma, I didn't mind those details. The characters and town were a life of their own. The creativeness of the names of people were something else! You also never knew the name of Emma till the very end. I'm also still trying to figure out what year/decade the story takes place. And the end? I'm still trying to figure it out......
December 2, 2019
Of the four elements that make up a book, I waver among those I love the best. I'll have my momentary heart stolen by the plot & pace thrillers like the Millennium Trilogy, sure, like everyone, but in my deepest moments of self, I'm a character & atmosphere woman. So Hotel Paradise is bliss for me. It's a souffle of atmosphere, with the character of Emma Graham & company whipped in. The pace is slow to fit the atmosphere and the plot is convoluted as the thinking of Emma herself. But I still maintain it's bliss. Such a picture of small-town life hints at some of our greatest authors. In many ways, Grimes comes closer to transcending her genre in these books than she does in her Richard Jury books that are so firmly grounded in the mystery tradition. How can I phrase a recommendation for this & the other three books in this series? If you wish to lie back in a glider on a porch on a late spring or summer day and be divertingly entertained and surprised, read these books.
April 2, 2011
I don't think it's fair to give this book 1 star because I didn't "dislike" it... but I did think it was incredibly boring and finishing it was such a chore. It didn't create "negative" feelings, which some other one star books have done. If it hadn't been a book club book, I probably wouldn't have finished it, actually. I do respect the author's writing ability and her powers of description, which is also why it got bumped up to two stars, but I just kept waiting for something to happen. I didn't feel there was much of a plot and when I finished the book I was left wondering, "that's it?!!"
September 24, 2014
And I wonder: why is it that a growing thing that springs up of its own accord and in surprising places must be "just a weed"?
The creepy truth is some poor cooked to death egg on its moon walks. Impatient photographers hung around the edges and they were sorry inside the lines. I never saw it anyway. It was just for a moment, when I was much younger than I am now. You know how little kids say they are some age and a half to make sure you won't deny a second of their lives? It was before your time minus that half. Don't make me older than I already am. It might have been a bird, no it was a bee. That's the trick of sneaking over the age line is to never admit you weren't already there. I didn't stay up past my bedtime and I wasn't there when that little girl drowned. It looks like a tragedy, an inevitability, these people, what can you do? and those folks. We've been here from the beginning.
So this Emma Graham picks up on all of their buried shit. Like a dog's treasure half presented at your feet and the remaining nastiest tidbit stashed away for graduation. Her truthings don't mean much except to Emma. Weeell, her version when she gets dressed for yet another day. Four books in this series and it is hard that she's twelve on a groundhog day. Her "I'm only twelve" reminders recalled a little girl brought deaf to the world when she's proud of herself in a new skirt. Uh huh, this is what my legs look like turning the universe. I liked that she is already afraid of what there is to lose. The backwash of precocious ego made me a bit sick at times. I was stuck with her when she was annoying. So the dead little girl died when she was Emma's age. Time and to-do lists and a cold one and I can see them sitting on their stools in the diner waiting as if nothing had happened at all between then and another person to add her weight of p's and q's. Everyone knows everyone smells coming from the kitchen. Their family tree remembers the harder to reach branches on your own if the gathering dust could think. I can feel it on the other side when someone who wasn't there makes it all about her. That's what it must have been like. Whatever happens is all about whomever if it is today or tomorrow. Who is left to paint Mary Evelyn as she looked to herself? I loved that about Hotel Paradise. I could see adopting a former tragedy as your own, maybe a true fascination with how a lost girl looked. You don't know what happens to her and it could be whatever you needed it to be when your own head felt like a empty house at night. I loved that Emma doesn't have a say in another's door steps. She presses her ghostly face and must have made it yesterday for long enough just by asking to hear that story once more. The Sheriff has his job to do and the girl detective is ever so put out when she doesn't run his show. Sometimes she gets it and there's some tedious voice over. The best thing about the Emma Graham series is it doesn't matter what happened to Mary Evelyn (and other tragedies) in a concentrated way you could sew up into a lifelike taxidermy project. Whatever animal you identify with as spirit animal. It feels true when it suits you and it feels uncomfortable when it doesn't. Or the other way around. I really liked that Emma is as pointless in her "truths" as everyone else. She doesn't know why it is so important to her to find out what happened. Best of all she doesn't want to know. If she finds out then maybe it'll leave her. Maybe she would have to settle another layer of dust with everyone else. Maybe no one would even ask her. Put on the hat of painter and tell everyone what theirs looks like, maybe. Maybe that's what she will keep on keeping on. Mary Evelyn is still dead. She goes treasure hunting for what ifs and back thens. I could catch the two girls side by side, like what if they were friends. Well, not really.
I can feel that search light without any effort most times. It feels really good to get a voice in your head of someone who, if they existed, could be with you and talk to you in that quiet head voice. Emma is sometimes the kind of girl who thinks it would be a relief to be an animal and free of wanting things. I liked this one a lot:
If she knew me we could talk about people I've known or observed being observed and commented on by others as a "at least they seem happy" type. Someone you wouldn't want to be yourself because your gut won't lie over the daily humiliations of everything that must be hard for them. Or you could be envious of them if life gets out of the way or them. But no way does it all of the time. I don't know how Emma could have said the two men who are stuck in the same sentence from forty years ago on the very same bench are happy. It was frustrating to take her as the final word. I don't want to accept happiness or its flip-side as the only outcome. What is it to her if they are not except for that wondering feeling you can get about other people that can feel good or horrible. For a kid who is making herself sick in holding onto what is left of childhood I'd think she'd be less keen on telling like it is for anyone else. Whatever you can manage to think is good or bad about anything on any given day. I don't think it was in Hotel Paradise (probably the sequel Cold Flat Junction) that people only wanted to check to make sure you were feeling how they wanted you to feel than them truly caring if you were happy or not. I got some consolation out of that Emma bit that day. She would probably have been thinking about for ages the stuff I did back then. Her girl hypnotizing herself with a pick up sticks game and mine who tried to rot her own teeth because she thought a mouth of gold teeth would be the best ever. The "weeds" line fits this whole series for me, really. Just walking around being Emma could be so good when sometimes she's in the hot seat. Family and town who could put you in a photo album as if your life were already over for them. Maybe life is sitting through a ton of bull shit to get a bit of something that has nothing to do with your own agenda. Does it have to be that way in a book? Maybe cut out all the fat, Grimes? Yeah? I know, too late. I wasn't there.
The creepy truth is some poor cooked to death egg on its moon walks. Impatient photographers hung around the edges and they were sorry inside the lines. I never saw it anyway. It was just for a moment, when I was much younger than I am now. You know how little kids say they are some age and a half to make sure you won't deny a second of their lives? It was before your time minus that half. Don't make me older than I already am. It might have been a bird, no it was a bee. That's the trick of sneaking over the age line is to never admit you weren't already there. I didn't stay up past my bedtime and I wasn't there when that little girl drowned. It looks like a tragedy, an inevitability, these people, what can you do? and those folks. We've been here from the beginning.
So this Emma Graham picks up on all of their buried shit. Like a dog's treasure half presented at your feet and the remaining nastiest tidbit stashed away for graduation. Her truthings don't mean much except to Emma. Weeell, her version when she gets dressed for yet another day. Four books in this series and it is hard that she's twelve on a groundhog day. Her "I'm only twelve" reminders recalled a little girl brought deaf to the world when she's proud of herself in a new skirt. Uh huh, this is what my legs look like turning the universe. I liked that she is already afraid of what there is to lose. The backwash of precocious ego made me a bit sick at times. I was stuck with her when she was annoying. So the dead little girl died when she was Emma's age. Time and to-do lists and a cold one and I can see them sitting on their stools in the diner waiting as if nothing had happened at all between then and another person to add her weight of p's and q's. Everyone knows everyone smells coming from the kitchen. Their family tree remembers the harder to reach branches on your own if the gathering dust could think. I can feel it on the other side when someone who wasn't there makes it all about her. That's what it must have been like. Whatever happens is all about whomever if it is today or tomorrow. Who is left to paint Mary Evelyn as she looked to herself? I loved that about Hotel Paradise. I could see adopting a former tragedy as your own, maybe a true fascination with how a lost girl looked. You don't know what happens to her and it could be whatever you needed it to be when your own head felt like a empty house at night. I loved that Emma doesn't have a say in another's door steps. She presses her ghostly face and must have made it yesterday for long enough just by asking to hear that story once more. The Sheriff has his job to do and the girl detective is ever so put out when she doesn't run his show. Sometimes she gets it and there's some tedious voice over. The best thing about the Emma Graham series is it doesn't matter what happened to Mary Evelyn (and other tragedies) in a concentrated way you could sew up into a lifelike taxidermy project. Whatever animal you identify with as spirit animal. It feels true when it suits you and it feels uncomfortable when it doesn't. Or the other way around. I really liked that Emma is as pointless in her "truths" as everyone else. She doesn't know why it is so important to her to find out what happened. Best of all she doesn't want to know. If she finds out then maybe it'll leave her. Maybe she would have to settle another layer of dust with everyone else. Maybe no one would even ask her. Put on the hat of painter and tell everyone what theirs looks like, maybe. Maybe that's what she will keep on keeping on. Mary Evelyn is still dead. She goes treasure hunting for what ifs and back thens. I could catch the two girls side by side, like what if they were friends. Well, not really.
I can feel that search light without any effort most times. It feels really good to get a voice in your head of someone who, if they existed, could be with you and talk to you in that quiet head voice. Emma is sometimes the kind of girl who thinks it would be a relief to be an animal and free of wanting things. I liked this one a lot:
Yet the two of them together (and they were never apart) seemed almost pleased with things. I've always thought it dumb, really dumb, to comment on other people's happiness- that is, whether they were or were not happy- but the Woods had an air about them as if they were more or less happy.
If she knew me we could talk about people I've known or observed being observed and commented on by others as a "at least they seem happy" type. Someone you wouldn't want to be yourself because your gut won't lie over the daily humiliations of everything that must be hard for them. Or you could be envious of them if life gets out of the way or them. But no way does it all of the time. I don't know how Emma could have said the two men who are stuck in the same sentence from forty years ago on the very same bench are happy. It was frustrating to take her as the final word. I don't want to accept happiness or its flip-side as the only outcome. What is it to her if they are not except for that wondering feeling you can get about other people that can feel good or horrible. For a kid who is making herself sick in holding onto what is left of childhood I'd think she'd be less keen on telling like it is for anyone else. Whatever you can manage to think is good or bad about anything on any given day. I don't think it was in Hotel Paradise (probably the sequel Cold Flat Junction) that people only wanted to check to make sure you were feeling how they wanted you to feel than them truly caring if you were happy or not. I got some consolation out of that Emma bit that day. She would probably have been thinking about for ages the stuff I did back then. Her girl hypnotizing herself with a pick up sticks game and mine who tried to rot her own teeth because she thought a mouth of gold teeth would be the best ever. The "weeds" line fits this whole series for me, really. Just walking around being Emma could be so good when sometimes she's in the hot seat. Family and town who could put you in a photo album as if your life were already over for them. Maybe life is sitting through a ton of bull shit to get a bit of something that has nothing to do with your own agenda. Does it have to be that way in a book? Maybe cut out all the fat, Grimes? Yeah? I know, too late. I wasn't there.
What I've picked up is that it's important in this life not to appear too enthusiastic about anything, as if in that way you can avoid disappointment. It was superstitious thinking. And it doesn't work, either; the disappointment is always just as bad.
July 19, 2012
I read Hotel Paradise on the recommendation of my sister, whose taste in books I trust. I immediately enjoyed the voice of the 12-year-old narrator and - not having read anything by Martha Grimes before - was not actually expecting a crime novel, and maybe that was a good thing, because this book doesn't really fit that genre. I'm not sure what genre it does fit - ghost story? coming of age novel? For me, it was evocative of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, as we get this 12-year-old girl's view of her world.
And it's a pretty strange world. If not for the specific reference to old Clint Eastwood westerns on the first page, I'd have thought the book was set in the 1950s. Martha Grimes has played with her readers in the time setting, many of the characters seem almost Victorian and Emma Graham, the 12-year-old girl, references things like bombazine, corsets, fingerless gloves, etc. If the story HAD been set in the 1950s, the 40-year-old mysterious death of a 12-year-old girl would have occurred around 1915, which would also have suited some of the details. Since the story is ultimately set in the 1990s (the book was published in 1996), the child's drowning had to happen in the 1950s. Which ALSO fit some of the descriptions. The disparity in time frames made for an other-worldly read, but at times, it also jerked me out of the story. It was disorienting, a bit like swimming underwater, but it made an interesting read.
The author's intent was also murky, and again, it helped that I didn't go into the book with high expectations of a crime novel. The plot unwound leisurely, full of Emma's observations of the people around her, and I really enjoyed that aspect. I don't mind a leisurely tale, as long as it's interesting along the way. This book was.
Go into this with an open mind. Let Emma's voice charm you, as it did me, and don't rush through the reading. My sister is currently reading the sequel, Cold Flat Junction, and has promised to loan it to me when she's done. I can't wait.
And it's a pretty strange world. If not for the specific reference to old Clint Eastwood westerns on the first page, I'd have thought the book was set in the 1950s. Martha Grimes has played with her readers in the time setting, many of the characters seem almost Victorian and Emma Graham, the 12-year-old girl, references things like bombazine, corsets, fingerless gloves, etc. If the story HAD been set in the 1950s, the 40-year-old mysterious death of a 12-year-old girl would have occurred around 1915, which would also have suited some of the details. Since the story is ultimately set in the 1990s (the book was published in 1996), the child's drowning had to happen in the 1950s. Which ALSO fit some of the descriptions. The disparity in time frames made for an other-worldly read, but at times, it also jerked me out of the story. It was disorienting, a bit like swimming underwater, but it made an interesting read.
The author's intent was also murky, and again, it helped that I didn't go into the book with high expectations of a crime novel. The plot unwound leisurely, full of Emma's observations of the people around her, and I really enjoyed that aspect. I don't mind a leisurely tale, as long as it's interesting along the way. This book was.
Go into this with an open mind. Let Emma's voice charm you, as it did me, and don't rush through the reading. My sister is currently reading the sequel, Cold Flat Junction, and has promised to loan it to me when she's done. I can't wait.
January 20, 2020
2 1/2 stars
Several times while reading this I was tempted to abandon it. But then I re-read the rapturous book blurb, along with some absolutely glowing GR reviews, and kept on going. I should have quit while I was ahead.
Even though parts of the novel were beautifully written, the slow pace just about killed me, and (for me) there was zero payoff at the end.
I feel cheated and robbed… I want my time investment back.
Several times while reading this I was tempted to abandon it. But then I re-read the rapturous book blurb, along with some absolutely glowing GR reviews, and kept on going. I should have quit while I was ahead.
Even though parts of the novel were beautifully written, the slow pace just about killed me, and (for me) there was zero payoff at the end.
I feel cheated and robbed… I want my time investment back.
September 19, 2012
Martha Grimes is amazing. How can writing this exquisite also be this absorbing? It's like a guilty pleasure without the guilt! Or, you know, a pleasure...would be another way of saying that, I guess.
September 27, 2017
Good writing. More of a literary fiction book than a mystery, though. This is book 1 in a series, so you really don't get much of a resolution to the mystery. I'll have to continue the story in book 2.
March 20, 2021
This literary mystery novel, featuring a 12 year-old narrator/detective, provides an eccentric cast of characters in a setting based on Martha Grimes’ childhood experiences at a hotel/restaurant in western Maryland. It also provides the insights from the mind of the smart, curious girl-detective, including some amusing ones like this:
"Do you know Dr. McComb?" I asked the Sheriff.
"Some. Why?"
I was still turning it over in my mind, that he might have been the doctor who had to pronounce Mary-Evelyn dead. "I guess he must be really old. He must be sixty-five, at least."
"More like eighty, I'd guess." Behind his impenetrable sunglasses, I couldn't see his eyes. But his mouth smiled. "It may surprise you, but there are people that don't think sixty-five's really old."
All in all, an excellent story, with more books in the series now available.
"Do you know Dr. McComb?" I asked the Sheriff.
"Some. Why?"
I was still turning it over in my mind, that he might have been the doctor who had to pronounce Mary-Evelyn dead. "I guess he must be really old. He must be sixty-five, at least."
"More like eighty, I'd guess." Behind his impenetrable sunglasses, I couldn't see his eyes. But his mouth smiled. "It may surprise you, but there are people that don't think sixty-five's really old."
All in all, an excellent story, with more books in the series now available.
April 26, 2022
(Random title from thrift shop; apparently Book 1 in a series of 3 or more)
Slow-paced but well-written. Takes place in a nice small setting (a small town, circa late 1950s), with some colorful characters. A compelling mystery (or two, or three). Overall a good story -- even though I felt somewhat cheated upon finishing it, as very little was resolved.
Also, there was a great deal of eating, cooking, and characters thinking or talking about food Perhaps not the best book to read if you are dieting. I wanted the heroine to focus on the mystery instead of detailing her every meal.
If I'm nitpicking: suspension of disbelief was rarely possible here. I liked the smart young protagonist, but her style of writing is nothing like I've ever seen from a 12-year-old--much less from most 20-somethings. But it actually didn't detract much in this book, somehow.
Recommended? Yes, with a caveat: you'll probably have to read the entire series to get satisfaction. There was more food than answers here in Book 1.
Slow-paced but well-written. Takes place in a nice small setting (a small town, circa late 1950s), with some colorful characters. A compelling mystery (or two, or three). Overall a good story -- even though I felt somewhat cheated upon finishing it, as very little was resolved.
Also, there was a great deal of eating, cooking, and characters thinking or talking about food Perhaps not the best book to read if you are dieting. I wanted the heroine to focus on the mystery instead of detailing her every meal.
If I'm nitpicking: suspension of disbelief was rarely possible here. I liked the smart young protagonist, but her style of writing is nothing like I've ever seen from a 12-year-old--much less from most 20-somethings. But it actually didn't detract much in this book, somehow.
Recommended? Yes, with a caveat: you'll probably have to read the entire series to get satisfaction. There was more food than answers here in Book 1.
December 31, 2021
Very similar to Where the Crawdads Sing as this is about a 12 year old girl living an unlikely adventure.
July 6, 2009
Hotel Paradise is a time travel vehicle of sorts. It takes the reader back to a simpler more provincial time before words such a potitical correctness and social consciousness became part of our vocabulary and nothing was thought of a 12 year old girl working in the family business.
The 12 year old girl in question is the narrator of the story and although she demonstrates a naivete comensurate with her years she also possesses an innate intelligence, insight and compassion far beyond her chronological age.
We become intimately acquainted with the people in the narrators life from her preoccupied, overworked mother and demanding spinster great aunt to the verbally challenged Wood brothers and her much admired confidant, Sheriff Sam DeGheyn. Itisn't until the final pages of the book that we learn that our narrators name is Emma Graham.
Throughout the book Emma is obsessed with two things: (1) her mothers culinary talent (she dscribes the tasty dishes in great detail and consumes them with unabashed relish....possibly using the comfort she finds in the food to fill other voids in her young life) and (2) investigating the 40 year old death by drowning of antoher 12 year old named Mary-Ellen Devereau.
Although this tale contains the requisite number of unexplained deaths, plus a spooky murky, water-lilly filled lake, an eerie abandoned old house and a town filled with citizens unwilling to share their knowledge of past events, this is less a murder mystery and more a study in morals and character.
Die-hard mystery lovers may find this offering disappointing, but for lovers of visually descriptive writing and eloquent observations liberally laced with humor, Hotel Paradise is a book you will savour.
Should you choose to check in to Hotel Paradise, your sure to enjoy your visit. 3 1/2 stars
The 12 year old girl in question is the narrator of the story and although she demonstrates a naivete comensurate with her years she also possesses an innate intelligence, insight and compassion far beyond her chronological age.
We become intimately acquainted with the people in the narrators life from her preoccupied, overworked mother and demanding spinster great aunt to the verbally challenged Wood brothers and her much admired confidant, Sheriff Sam DeGheyn. Itisn't until the final pages of the book that we learn that our narrators name is Emma Graham.
Throughout the book Emma is obsessed with two things: (1) her mothers culinary talent (she dscribes the tasty dishes in great detail and consumes them with unabashed relish....possibly using the comfort she finds in the food to fill other voids in her young life) and (2) investigating the 40 year old death by drowning of antoher 12 year old named Mary-Ellen Devereau.
Although this tale contains the requisite number of unexplained deaths, plus a spooky murky, water-lilly filled lake, an eerie abandoned old house and a town filled with citizens unwilling to share their knowledge of past events, this is less a murder mystery and more a study in morals and character.
Die-hard mystery lovers may find this offering disappointing, but for lovers of visually descriptive writing and eloquent observations liberally laced with humor, Hotel Paradise is a book you will savour.
Should you choose to check in to Hotel Paradise, your sure to enjoy your visit. 3 1/2 stars
April 28, 2011
I am trying to figure out why I chose this book to read, why I requested it from the library and brought it home but I just can't remember. That said, I'm glad I did because I did enjoy the story.
This book is a reminder of what a good mystery is supposed to be like. Filled with memories of better days gone by, perfect descriptions of food, people and places and enough of a touch of the mystery (and a super cute mystery solver) to keep the reader guessing and trying to figure out the story.
I'm not a big fan of "who done it" mysteries, I like my mysteries to have a gradual unfolding of a story, the story being the mystery itself instead of some huge unveiling "shock factor" type ending - and that's what I got with this book.
I'd never heard of Martha Grimes before, but I'm glad I followed whatever impulse made me pick Hotel Paradise up and I plan to check out more of Grimes works in the near future.
This book is a reminder of what a good mystery is supposed to be like. Filled with memories of better days gone by, perfect descriptions of food, people and places and enough of a touch of the mystery (and a super cute mystery solver) to keep the reader guessing and trying to figure out the story.
I'm not a big fan of "who done it" mysteries, I like my mysteries to have a gradual unfolding of a story, the story being the mystery itself instead of some huge unveiling "shock factor" type ending - and that's what I got with this book.
I'd never heard of Martha Grimes before, but I'm glad I followed whatever impulse made me pick Hotel Paradise up and I plan to check out more of Grimes works in the near future.
July 22, 2018
It started off well enough but then tedium set in, no matter how many pages were turned.
Read
May 22, 2023Shared a love for Martha Grimes with my mother-in-law. No review available.
September 27, 2021
Please pardon me while I rhapsodize about this book. I had always heard of Martha Grimes and her Richard Jury mysteries but had never read any of her books. I also thought that she was British but she was born in Pittsburg (how American can you get!) She and her brother spent a lot of their childhood in Western Maryland because their mother owned a hotel there. This book draws from their childhood adventures at or near the old hotel. I don't believe the time is exactly placed but it may take place in the early 60's while the publication date is 1997.
The main character is twelve years old and is not named until late in the book. She reminds me a lot of Scout Finch.
This is not a spoiler but the total mystery is not solved in this book but is supposed to be solved in the second book, Cold Flat Junction. Because the book moves very slowly but beautifully it may not be interesting to every mystery reader but all the characters, both children and adults are memorable. It is easy to involve your emotions into the book, for instance I got very frustrated with the young girl's mother who owns the hotel and cooks great meals for the hotel guests and townspeople. She does not pay much attention to her daughter and she is left to her own imagination and trouble follows her. I highly recommend this book to everyone.
The main character is twelve years old and is not named until late in the book. She reminds me a lot of Scout Finch.
This is not a spoiler but the total mystery is not solved in this book but is supposed to be solved in the second book, Cold Flat Junction. Because the book moves very slowly but beautifully it may not be interesting to every mystery reader but all the characters, both children and adults are memorable. It is easy to involve your emotions into the book, for instance I got very frustrated with the young girl's mother who owns the hotel and cooks great meals for the hotel guests and townspeople. She does not pay much attention to her daughter and she is left to her own imagination and trouble follows her. I highly recommend this book to everyone.
December 12, 2015
This book seems to be a book that you either love or hate. I personally love it. You have to appreciate atmosphere and immersing yourself in another world to full enjoy this book. The pace is deliberately slow, but not boring. It is told through the eyes of a very likeable 12 year old narrator and it is a blissfully simpler world than the one that I currently live in. There's also a really interesting mystery, but reading the book is so leisurely and enjoyable that you don't mind that it takes longer than normal to solve the mystery (PS this is the first in a series surrounding one mystery with the narrator learning a bit more in each book). I found the settings intriguing and enjoyed meeting the characters that appear throughout the book. If you need a book to be fast paced you are not going to like this novel, but this is one of my favorite books.
September 7, 2008
Part mystery, part coming-of-age story, part comedy -- the heroine, Emma Graham, is 12 going on 30 and determined to solve the mystery of the drowning 40 years ago of a girl her age. Likeable characters in a richly rendered setting.
December 29, 2019
A delightful mystery narrated by a 12-year-old girl. Emma tries to collect information about the drowning of a girl her age that occurred 40 years ago. There still are a few folks around who remember the case. This novel has some of the same characters as "The End of the Pier."
November 14, 2020
One of my favorites. Read it twice, and probably will read it again. It's not a good book if mystery is what you're looking for. I did not care much for the mystery aspect. What I fell in love with is the voice of the narrator, 12 year-old, Emma.
November 16, 2009
A prose-poet of unparalleled incandescence.
July 20, 2012
A fascinating read; I particularly enjoyed how much was left for you to interpret on your own.
February 2, 2024
nothing happened in the first 100 pages. up to page 320 the story is putting the cookie crumbs around to let you find out the mystery. the remaining 100 pages is the biggest crime to the ‘show don’t tell’ rule bc every character is explaining the solution to the mystery. i’m still confused as to what the solution to the story was. parts of the plot were very convoluted. a very boomer coded book, i think i’m just too gen z to get it
July 5, 2024
Picked out randomly as an e book after reading several rave reviews.
Alas it wasn’t for me, left me feeling mmmmm stranded? Wondering why that was the end.
I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it either, despite the strong writing skills.
Alas it wasn’t for me, left me feeling mmmmm stranded? Wondering why that was the end.
I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it either, despite the strong writing skills.
April 27, 2022
Does much happen in this book? Not really. Am I going to read the other 3? Absolutely. I loved being in Emma’s head, her voice is so distinct and all of the people who make up Spirit Lake seem like real people. I want to visit again and thankfully, I can, because I’m already onto book 2!
January 31, 2022
I got about 1/3rd of the way through before I gave up. I found it very well-written, but I didn't like the balance of mystery vs other story elements. I wanted a little more mystery (or possibly a little less setting, mood, etc) and a little faster pace.
May 19, 2023
don't judge a book by its cover........
July 20, 2021
I am so enthralled by this series. I find the books so comforting and nostalgic-feeling, even though they are fundamentally melancholy (whoever made the executive decision of having an Edward Hopper painting as the cover of this edition knows what they're about -- the loneliness of Hopper's work perfectly matches the Emma Graham books thematically).
There's a lot of speculation over when exactly these books are set, and this is something I've been incredibly curious about too. I've done extensive research, Googling every cultural reference that appears in the books or anything that could possibly be dated, but often the information I've uncovered is contradictory: on the very first page Emma talks about "Clint Eastwood's old westerns," which are mainly from the 60s and 70s. The modifier of "old," as well insinuates that Emma is viewing them from a distance of time. Okay, I thought, so maybe Martha Grimes set these novels contemporarily to the time they were published, so the 1990s. However, later in the novel Emma drinks Orange Crush out of a bottle which is "dark brown and slightly ribbed up and down," "like no other pop bottle. Almost all of them were plain glass." This caught my attention as, according to this article, from 1955 onwards Orange Crush was mainly served in clear glass bottles instead of brown. Another interesting factor is that Martha Grimes took inspiration for this series from her own childhood summers which were spent at her mother's hotel in Maryland.
Martha Grimes was born in 1931, which means it was 1943 when she was 12, the same age as Emma. So when?
I recently had a revelation that the actual date isn't important; my reading of these books is more that they are a discussion of nostalgia, and memory, and the way that time seems to slide together, so that two events which one might remember as happening simultaneously actually occurred years apart. They attempt to replicate the general feeling of childhood and of growing up in a small American community in the 20th century, rather than to evoke a specific time.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend this series to others. It's very odd, and I don't think most people will appreciate it for the same reasons I do, not that I think I'm particularly special, but mostly because my feelings for it are very subjective and based on my own personal tastes/experiences.
There's a lot of speculation over when exactly these books are set, and this is something I've been incredibly curious about too. I've done extensive research, Googling every cultural reference that appears in the books or anything that could possibly be dated, but often the information I've uncovered is contradictory: on the very first page Emma talks about "Clint Eastwood's old westerns," which are mainly from the 60s and 70s. The modifier of "old," as well insinuates that Emma is viewing them from a distance of time. Okay, I thought, so maybe Martha Grimes set these novels contemporarily to the time they were published, so the 1990s. However, later in the novel Emma drinks Orange Crush out of a bottle which is "dark brown and slightly ribbed up and down," "like no other pop bottle. Almost all of them were plain glass." This caught my attention as, according to this article, from 1955 onwards Orange Crush was mainly served in clear glass bottles instead of brown. Another interesting factor is that Martha Grimes took inspiration for this series from her own childhood summers which were spent at her mother's hotel in Maryland.
Martha Grimes was born in 1931, which means it was 1943 when she was 12, the same age as Emma. So when?
I recently had a revelation that the actual date isn't important; my reading of these books is more that they are a discussion of nostalgia, and memory, and the way that time seems to slide together, so that two events which one might remember as happening simultaneously actually occurred years apart. They attempt to replicate the general feeling of childhood and of growing up in a small American community in the 20th century, rather than to evoke a specific time.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend this series to others. It's very odd, and I don't think most people will appreciate it for the same reasons I do, not that I think I'm particularly special, but mostly because my feelings for it are very subjective and based on my own personal tastes/experiences.
November 29, 2024
Hotel Paradise by Martha Grimes, published in 1996, was a wonderful, simple, beautifully written book. 5 stars for me. Subjects on our library website were listed as City and town life- - Appalachian Region- - Fiction. Genre was Detective and mystery fiction. The summary on our library website states, “At a rundown, once-fashionable lakefront resort hotel in a small town, a twelve-year-old girl becomes obsessed with the drowning death of another young girl forty years earlier…”. The pace of the story, I think, is purposely slow and easy going. While I certainly wouldn’t call this a funny book, I did find myself fairly often laughing out-loud over the antics of this 12-year-old narrator and her group of older friends trying to solve a mystery. It was a beautiful story of what many call “a simpler time”. I could relate to much of the story. This was book 1 of a 3 book series.
July 15, 2016
I read Hotel Paradise for a book club discussion over on the Chicklit message boards. It's probably not a book I would have ever picked out on my own, but I guess that's part of the purpose of book clubs, and I did enjoy it in the end.
Hotel Paradise is the story of a 12-year-old girl who lives at her mother's hotel and spends most of her free time investigating the 40-year-old death of another 12-year-old girl. Ms. Grimes's book is filled with wonderfully eccentric characters, but they never seem overdone or gratuitously weird (and besides, it's pretty apparent that the narrator is drawn to the unusual and overlooked members of her small-town society, making it even more understandable that so many of the primary characters have quirks or eccentricities). The characters and the sense of place are definitely among the book's strong points.
I did have a hard time finding the narrator a convincing 12-year-old. While her thoughts and actions were believable, something about her phrasings and use of language seemed too old for her, especially since she says she's not much of a reader or particularly school-smart. I think this stumbling block is what held me back from getting very wrapped up in the book for the first hundred pages or so.
Eventually, though, I did get sucked into the book, and I liked that the mystery never became fully solved. The book was more about the narrator's growth and childhood than it was about neatly tying everything up. It's possible for the reader to puzzle out a lot of what happened (both in the 40-year-old death and in another death that happens during the course of the story), but parts are left unresolved, as if to remind the reader that no one person can ever fully understand another person's actions and decisions.
I'm not sure Hotel Paradise is a book I'd recommend or one I'd revisit, but I did enjoy reading it, and I'm looking forward to the book club discussions about it.
Hotel Paradise is the story of a 12-year-old girl who lives at her mother's hotel and spends most of her free time investigating the 40-year-old death of another 12-year-old girl. Ms. Grimes's book is filled with wonderfully eccentric characters, but they never seem overdone or gratuitously weird (and besides, it's pretty apparent that the narrator is drawn to the unusual and overlooked members of her small-town society, making it even more understandable that so many of the primary characters have quirks or eccentricities). The characters and the sense of place are definitely among the book's strong points.
I did have a hard time finding the narrator a convincing 12-year-old. While her thoughts and actions were believable, something about her phrasings and use of language seemed too old for her, especially since she says she's not much of a reader or particularly school-smart. I think this stumbling block is what held me back from getting very wrapped up in the book for the first hundred pages or so.
Eventually, though, I did get sucked into the book, and I liked that the mystery never became fully solved. The book was more about the narrator's growth and childhood than it was about neatly tying everything up. It's possible for the reader to puzzle out a lot of what happened (both in the 40-year-old death and in another death that happens during the course of the story), but parts are left unresolved, as if to remind the reader that no one person can ever fully understand another person's actions and decisions.
I'm not sure Hotel Paradise is a book I'd recommend or one I'd revisit, but I did enjoy reading it, and I'm looking forward to the book club discussions about it.
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