I feel like Alfred Htichcock has always been a part of my life, going all the way back to early adolescence. I’m not sure how he showed up first; it might have been via the Diff’rent Strokes episodes when Arnold and the family visit Universal Studios and take a wrong turn and wind up at the Bates Motel.
Maybe it was the new episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that started airing in the mid ’80s, or it could have been when I started reading Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators, a series of novels for kids that found Hitch acting a benefactor or advisor to a team of teen detectives. Regardless of when it all started, the spectre of Hitchcock has long loomed in my life. And clearly, he’s also been a force for author Stephanie Wrobel, whose new novel The Hitchcock Hotel, is a suspenseful love letter to the legendary director of enduring films like Vertigo, Rear Window, The Birds and, of course, Psycho.
Here’s the log line: From the USA TODAY and nationally bestselling author of Darling Rose Gold comes a dark, suspenseful novel about a hotelier in New England planning a reunion with his oldest friends, the founding members of a campus film club devoted to Alfred Hitchcock.
Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan. He is the founder, owner, and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a sprawling Victorian house in the White Mountains dedicated to the Master of Suspense. There, Alfred offers his guests round-the-clock film screenings, movie props and memorabilia in every room, plus an aviary with fifty crows.
To celebrate the hotel’s first anniversary, he invites his former best friends from his college Film Club for a reunion. He hasn’t spoken to any of them in sixteen years, not after what happened.
But who better than them to appreciate Alfred’s creation? And to help him finish it.
After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a body.
Stephanie Wrobel’s novel is a truly wonderful homage to Hitchcock; the author manages to capture the sinister vibe of the best of the director’s works, while also crafting her own unique mystery involving a cast of characters that could all be the villain. Wrobel’s writing is brisk and keeps you engaged; there are important details and character development delivered, but never with a wasted word. Hitchcock fans will, unsurprisingly love all the homages to the Master of Suspense that Wrobel peppers throughout The Hitchcock Hotel; some obvious, others less so.
While the novel is an absolute thriller/mystery, it’s also a smart look at how friendships can change over the course of our lifetime. The lead characters in The Hitchcock Hotel become close in college and for many of them, they anticipate those friendships will last. Don’t we all think that way? In the body of a suspenseful novel, Stephanie Wrobel manages to wistfully comment on how relationships grow, and how people grow apart.
The Hitchcock Hotel is a loving tip of the hat to Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary oeuvre, and is a fun read, especially for those obsessives who have spent time digging and digesting every aspect of Hitch’s work. The book is available September 24 from Simon & Schuster. You can learn about author Stephanie Wrobel at her website, stephaniewrobel.com
