home > mystery novel reviews > the hanging in the hotel

The Hanging in the Hotel

by Simon Brett

The Hanging in the Hotel is not one of Simon Brett's best novels. This happens to be the first 'Fethering' series book I've read, but if this is an example of the rest of Mr. Brett's efforts in the 'Fethering' series, I'll stick to the Charles Paris or Mrs. Pargeter books instead. Simon Brett is noted for his wry sense of humor – apparent in his TV work as well as his novels – and his writing and wit deserves a better ending than that provided us with The Hanging in the Hotel. Mr. Brett writes wonderfully well throughout the book, as we've come to expect, until the very end – and we were captivated by the story. But I happen to be one of those people who like my fiction to end with everything neatly tied up – and such isn't the case with this particular Feathering book. Although the actual murderer is discovered and punished, the person who actually ordered the murders committed gets away scot free. And the paragraphs delineating the outcome of the other participants in the novel make me think Mr. Brett was simply in a hurry to be done with the whole thing. After such a fine beginning and middle, it's a disappointing end, and hardly worthy of Simon Brett.

Jude is the name of a female actor who has retained her friendship with Suzy Longthorne, the beautiful owner of the Hopwicke Country House Hotel, so Suzy feels free to summon her for help whenever Suzy has a short-handed emergency, which is why she's asking Jude to fill in as a waitress. When Jude arrives, she finds Kerry Hartson, the teenage daughter of a wealthy property developer, supposedly doing 'work experience' for Suzy during the Easter holidays- but actually doing as little as possible. Kerry is primarily interested in becoming a pop star (where she could take advantage of her looks and do nothing except gyrate and sing) rather than drudging away in hotel in hotel management.

Suzy is preparing for a dinner to accommodate the Pillars of Sussex – an all-male group of businessmen with predispositions for booze and misogyny Bob Hartson, Kerry's father, is an important member of the group. Others involved in the story are the hotel's chef, Max Townley, Suzy's former husband, Rick Hendry, and Carole Seddon, Jude's older, conservative friend who has just realized she doesn't really know her son Stephen – a man who informs her he's about to be married.

After discovering one of the 'Pillars' asleep in a chair in the hotel bar, Jude and Suzy are made aware he is Donald Chew, the outgoing president. As expected, most of the members of the Pillars drink a great deal before, during and after dinner – and so stay on at the hotel overnight instead of attempting to drive home when they are so obviously drunk. Geoff, Bob Hartson's chauffeur, is put up in the stable block with the other help including Kerry, while his master and her father retire in the hotel itself.

Jude goes about to close up the hotel at two-thirty A.M. after helping her friend clean up from the dinner, and finds Nigel Ackford, a guest of the Pillars, singing and drunk outside his room door. She helps him inside, and when he suddenly appears more sober, engages in a conversation where he confides that he's looking forward to becoming a Pillars member, and that he also is going to ask his girlfriemd to marry him. So it's all the more confusing when he's discovered dead and hanging from the canopy of his four-poster bed the next morning.

The death is claimed as suicide, but Jude and her neighbor Carole both feel it's a murder. Later when Donald Chew is also murdered (although it looks like an accident) they're sure. After a number of things happen to steer them in another direction, Jude and Carole bring the real murderer to light. But the individual behind that person – the one on whom the blame really should descend – literally gets away with
murder since there's no evidence to prove his guilt.

Simon Brett is far too fine a writer to allow his work to end that way. The main story is intriguing and I read The Hanging in the Hotel in one sitting. But Mr. Brett left me hanging as well as his first murder victim. Every mystery fan will enjoy this work up to the final pages – and perhaps even then, since I can only judge for myself and my own interests. All I can say is that after twenty-seven years of writing, maybe Simon Brett is getting a little tired of it all?

Alan Paul Curtis

back