Book Summary and Reviews of The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart

The Paradox Hotel

A Novel

by Rob Hart

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Published:
  • Feb 2022, 336 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

An impossible crime. A detective on the edge of madness. The future of time travel at stake. From the author of The Warehouse...

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.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"[S]tellar...The twists keep coming...in this impressive melding of creative plotting and three-dimensional characters. Hart remains a writer to watch." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Inventive action, breakneck pacing, and a delightfully acerbic yet achingly vulnerable first-person-present narration distinguish this speculative noir stunner, which meditates on grief while exploring issues of inequity and determinism. The worldbuilding can feel hand-wavy, and the supporting cast is so large as to occasionally confuse, but on balance, Hart delivers a riveting read likely to win him scores of new fans. Funny, thrilling, poignant, and profound." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"This wildly ambitious, well-executed genre-bender is suspenseful, clever, and funny." - Booklist

"Electric...a tense, taut cinematic kick to the teeth." - Chuck Wendig, New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers

"Wildly inventive and endlessly entertaining...the time-twisting, sci-fi, noir-tinged mystery with heart I never knew I needed in my life." - Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of Survive the Night

"A tricky and trippy mystery that keeps the reader guessing and thinking well past the very last page." - Wesley Chu, New York Times bestselling co-author of The Red Scrolls of Magic

This information about The Paradox Hotel was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Rob Hart

Rob Hart is the author of The Warehouse and the Ash McKenna crime series, and he co-wrote Scott Free with James Patterson. He's worked as a book publisher, a reporter, a political communications director, and a commissioner for the city of New York. He lives on Staten Island.

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