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Hotel No Tell: A Novel (2011)

by Daphne Uviller(Favorite Author)

3.48 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0385342705 (ISBN13: 9780385342704)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Bantam

series

Zephyr Zuckerman

review 1: I didn't really know what to expect with HOTEL NO TELL. I hadn't read the first book about Zephyr Zuckerman, SUPER IN THE CITY. But the press release promised comedy and the cover struck me as a modern update on noir. I'd just seen Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and had visions in my head of a funny update and deconstruction of noir detective tropes.Not so much.And yeah, I can be harsh on books when they aren't what I was expecting. But I liked HOTEL NO TELL and identified with Zephyr almost immediately.HOTEL NO TELL gives about equal weight to Zephyr's life with her family and friends as to her case. She recently broke up with long time boyfriend Gregory, because he wanted kids and she didn't. Everyone is acting like she's silly to break up a good thing for a stage she'll grow out... more of. Since I don't want kids of my own, I know how pushy people can be when you bring up that fact. (Even my family does it, and they know I have no maternal instincts.) She also has to help two close friends with their personal crises: one isn't adapting to suburbia and the other . . . well, people she comes in contact with have a tendency to die in freak accidents.As for the case? Now a junior detective with the New York City Special Investigations Commission, Zephyr gets her first chance to go undercover. $100,000 has been embezzled from a small hotel. Shortly after going undercover, Zephyr finds the owner's nephew in a customer's room, dying from an Ambien overdose. As with any good detective story, the two seemingly unrelated cases are intimately related.Daphne Uviller's prose style didn't capture my attention at first, but I liked her vocabulary. After a couple of chapters I managed to get into the rhythm of HOTEL NO TELL. From there the story was fast-paced and funny, if rarely hard-boiled. Zephyr's world is somewhat cartoonish, but there's a strong emotional core. I certainly intend to spend more time in her world.
review 2: “Hotel no Tell” by Daphne UvillerZephyr Zuckerman has a lot to contend with, the least of which is her family and group of girl friends better known as The Sterling Girls, all with issues and all in need of her help at one time or another. Zephyr has her own life plan: she wants to become a full-fledged private investigator.Commissioner Pippa Flatland is her boss and a woman who cuts right to the chase of her need and enjoys using the Staten Island Ferry as her office, at least the part where she holds private meetings with her detectives. As they talk on the ferry, Pippa informs Zephyr her next assignment is The Greenwich Village Motel. She was contacted by owner Ballard McKenzie because he’s worried his son, Hutchinson is doing something fishy with the books to the tune of a hundred grand and he needs to find out for sure.Pippa sets her up with Ballard to be the new concierge at the hotel. Zephyr has some personal baggage of her own that promises to get in the way. Ollie her father who happens to be the ADA, her mother Bella, the founder of a financial seminar franchise, her brother who she fears will use any and all of her “life issues” for the meat in his screenplays, ex-boyfriend Gregory Samson and her best gal pal, Macy St. John. They enjoy meeting at the Leroy Street dog run—even though neither one of them owns a dog—for their favorite beverage, Roasting Plant coffee.Zephyr meets more than her fair share of colorful characters and situations: a Korean woman who is absolutely out of place, a nursing home, poisoning, lies, humor, even nail-biting, this novel has it all! Hutchinson is less than impressed and more than a little insulted that his father has brought in someone new to “work with him.” Thank god for Asa, the man who covers the front desk and Zephyr’s backside whenever she needs it, which is often. If Zephyr can ever decide whether or not she’ll give Gregory the children he wants—and she doesn’t—and she can get her license, all will be right in her world. Fun! Fast! Overall, a great read!Reviewed by Terri Ann Armstrong, author of “How to Plant a Body” less

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