Book Review: THE HITCHCOCK HOTEL (2024)

I recently devoured Stephanie Wrobel's new mystery novel, The Hitchcock Hotel, and, as its name implies, this is a fantastic book for fans of Alfred Hitchcock's films. I picked up the ebook based solely on its title and promo blurb, not having read anything by Wrobel before, and I was hooked as soon as I started reading. In addition to the titular hotel and its macabre collection of Hitchcock memorabilia, the novel features plenty of homages to the iconic auteur and his work, particularly Rope (1948), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), and The Birds (1963). If you're looking for a twisty, character-driven thriller tailored to the tastes of classic movie fans, The Hitchcock Hotel should be your next read.

The novel alternates third-person perspectives between a group of former college friends reunited for a weekend at the Hitchcock themed hotel recently opened by Alfred Smettle, who was part of the tight-knit gang in school until a shocking event senior year tore them apart. More than fifteen years later, Alfred still blames his old friends for the downward turn of his life, and he envisions the weekend get-together as a way to settle some scores with the assistance of his elderly housekeeper, Danny, while also drumming up publicity for the hotel. Attending the gathering are overachiever Grace, alcoholic Zoe, peacemaker Samira, rich playboy Julius, and secretive bodyguard TJ, all of them nursing their own guilt and resentment. When old wounds are re-opened and old sins resurrected, the weekend goes violently awry.

I came for the Hitchcock connections, of course, and on that front I was not disappointed, from the aviary full of crows to the hotel decor and the way the plot wove through the plots of the films, especially the less familiar Rope. (If you haven't seen Rope before, watching it prior to reading the book will enhance your appreciation, but it's not absolutely necessary). A repeated tribute to Suspicion (1941) was also great fun, as was the creepy evocation of Norman Bates in Alfred's relationship with his late mother. Wrobel plays with favorite Hitchcockian themes like paranoia, surveillance, sexual frustration, revenge, and obsession, with particular emphasis on the idea of the perfect murder as presented in Rope, Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and Strangers on a Train (1951). Reading the book reminded me of the delicious thrills of the films and made me want to revisit them, which I hope to do over the next several weeks.

Beyond the classic movie angle, however, I very much enjoyed the novel's exploration of the way time changes friendships and even forces people to question why they forged those relationships in the first place. The friend group in this story has not really kept in touch since graduation, and they mostly only know about each other's lives through their social media feeds, but when they reunite they quickly fall back into their old patterns of behavior with one another. Some of them harbor resentments, while others yearn for a return to the camaraderie they believe they shared in their youth. I'm still in regular communication with my group of college friends from 30 years ago, but it's not the same as it was in our school days, when we ate and lived and studied together. In the novel, dark secrets cloud the friends' reunion, but their nostalgia for their shared youth feels terribly familiar to me. I still think fondly of days spend reading Shakespeare on the quad and nights in the secret garden behind the library that we claimed as our private gathering space. Of course, as far as I know, none of us has ever been involved in a murder, but we did once end up in traffic court.

The Hitchcock Hotel is Stephanie Wrobel's third novel, following her debut, Darling Rose Gold (2020), and This Might Hurt (2022). You can learn more about her at her website. For more mystery novels with a classic movie connection, I recommend the Toby Peters series by Stuart M. Kaminsky, but if you like books that really play with a particular classic celebrity's legacy, you can revel in the love for Vincent Price that haunts Kate Racculia's 2019 novel, Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts.

 

Looking for full reviews of Hitchcock's films? Here are a few!

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951)

STAGE FRIGHT (1950)

SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943)

PSYCHO (1960)

VERTIGO (1958)

SUSPICION (1941)