Con Lehane Death at the Old Hotel

Death at the Old Hotel

Con Lehane

Dunne, Jun 2007, $23.95

ISBN: 9780312323004

In the early 90s, New York bartender Brian McNulty is exiled to work at the dilapidated Savoy Hotel, west of eighth on forty-eighth. The run down establishment is filled because the city is jammed with the Christmas visitors. Brian's peer union organizer Barney Saunders believes the hotel's manager James MacAlister is on the take most likely from the connection between big union and the mob. MacAlister's actions outrage his staff, which leads to a protest strike that turns violent. On the picket lines married waitress Betsy Tierney offers solace to an already injured Barney; her irate spouse Dennis, one of New York's finest attacks him for encouraging his wife to picket, but Brian intercedes.

That same night someone murders MacAlister and Tierney. The police believe Barney killed the pair with Betsy being his femme fatale. Brian knows his friend would not commit cold blooded murder so he investigates working the mean streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn where unions and organized crime meet.

Con Lehane provides a fabulous look at criminal side of the city in which big union, nig management, big government and big mob understand the rules of engagement is WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND. Brian is at his best as he struggles to prove a union mid level official is the culprit while the Men in Blue refuse to look anywhere except at Barney as a cop killer. Readers will enjoy his somewhat cynical yet optimistic efforts as his personal philosophy is anything goes just BEWARE THE SOLITARY DRINKER.

Harriet Klausner