Death at the Old Hotel
St. Martin's Minotaur
"Forget the glitterati, the Eurotrash and the robber barons. Brian McNulty is my kind of New Yorker, and Con Lehane writes about the New York I love." --SJ Rozan, author of In This Rain
“A fierce novel in the Irish sense...it may well prove to be the definitive Irish American saga. A dark emerald, lit by old glory...a true masterpiece of slow burn.”
--Ken Bruen, author of The Dramatist
June 12, 2007
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-0312323004
Tensions are high and the dangers multiply, as New York City bartender and man-about-the-mean streets Brian McNulty, always a sucker for the plight of the little guy, joins forces with a motley crew of workers from the old Savoy Hotel to tackle a cheating union bureaucrat and a corrupt, tyrannical hotel boss.
McNulty has once more run afoul of the powers-that-be in the New York City hotel and restaurant industry and finds himself exiled to a down-at-the heels hotel in, for him, the far reaches of civilization-Manhattan, west of Eighth Avenue. Not long into his tenure at the Savoy, a vicious attack on one of his fellow bartenders raises the stakes and puts everyone on edge, so it doesn't take much for the hotel manager to provoke the outraged workers into a strike. Once they hit the bricks, all hell breaks loose, and it isn't long until the bodies start to fall.
June 13 Borders Books and Records Fairfield CT.
June 14 WTBQ Frank Truatt morning show
June 14 Drop-in signings New York City
Partners and Crime
Black Orchid Books
June 14 Book signing
Mysterious Bookshop
Book Party in Manhattan
June 15 Book Party Parker's Bethesda 6:00 p.m.
Book Signing Bethesda (MD) Barnes and Noble 7:30 p.m.
June 18 Reading and Signing
1:00 p.m. Chapters Bookstore (Washington, DC)
June 18 Reading and Signing
Fountain Bookstore (Richmond, VA)
June 19 Reading and Signing
Quail Ridge Books (Raleigh, NC)
June 20 Drop-in signing
Happy Bookseller, (Columbia, SC)
June 21 Two Sisters Bookery (Wilmington, NC)
Writing workshop
June 22 Reading and Signing
Park Road Books, Charlotte
June 23 Reading and Singing
Barnes and Noble Williamsburg (VA)
June 25 ALA Conference
Washington, DC
June 26 Reading and Signing
Toadstool Bookshop (Milford, NH)
June 27 Kate's Mystery Books
Cambridge Mass
July 16 Mystery Loves Company
Oxford, MD
July 17 Thrillerfest
Panel "The Phantom of Manhattan"
Additional:
Decatur Book Festival 8/31 to 9/2
Southern Festivalof Books October 12-14
Delaware Book Festival November 3
Naturally, when it comes time to pick a suspect there are plenty to choose from-a picket line full of malcontent workers-and before you know it, McNulty is sorting through his collection of reprobate pals to figure out who might be a murderer this time. The cops focus in on two of McNulty's pals, a renegade Irishman and a young, pretty waitress from Brooklyn, both with closets full of secrets and buckets full of problems of their own.
McNulty thinks the cops, as usual, are barking up the wrong tree, but that's the least of his problems because it's not only the police who are determined to track down the killer. The hits in this particular instance have angered the gods of gangsterland, and one of the midtown Mustache Pete's has determined that McNulty is a "problem"-not something you want to be in a world where problems don't get solved, they get whacked.
Keeping the goons off his back and away from his son Kevin is more than enough motivation for McNulty to put his not especially well-honed detective skills to work in the service of justice. Not surprisingly, neither justice nor McNulty himself fare very well in the endeavor, but as in past escapades, his dogged determination and willingness to see life without illusion bring the case to closure and McNulty face to face once more with unyielding and unpleasant truth.