The Launch Party by Lauren Forry
Dec. 21st, 2023 01:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Hotel Artemis
Ten lucky people have won a place at the most exclusive launch event of the century: the grand opening of the Hotel Artemis, the first hotel on the moon. It’s an invitation to die for. As their transport departs for its return to Earth and the doors seal shut behind them, the guests take the next leap for mankind.
However, they soon discover that all is not as it seems. The champagne may be flowing, but there is no one to pour it. Room service is available, but there is no one to deliver it. Besides the ten of them, they are completely alone.
When one of the guests is found murdered, fear spreads through the group. But that death is only the beginning. Being three days’ journey from home and with no way to contact the outside, can any of the guests survive their stay?
It’s the near future.
Penelope Strand has won a competition to be one of ten people to stay at the Hotel Artemis (the first ever all-luxury resort built on the moon by the Apollo Group that’s exclusively for millionaires and billionaires). With her are:
- Tonya Burton - a tabloid journalist specialising in celebrities who became widely villified as a result of one of her stories;
- Dr Erik Wyss - a Swiss medical doctor with an eye for the ladies;
- Dai Uchida - the Japanese billionaire CEO of an investments firm;
- Charlotte Richter - a German lawyer specialising in family law and divorce;
- Professor Alison Crane - a 20-something psychology professor;
- Robert ‘Bobby’ Rannells - an American reality TV star in his 60s;
- Jackson Smith - a 30-something Canadian accountant who is also a massive fan of Bobby Rannells;
- Sasha Eris - an architect specialising in churches and places of worship; and
- Freddy Nwankwo - a 20-something criminology major student at New York University.
Because this is the first ever stay at the Hotel Artemis there’s a huge amount of media attention and the group are heavily managed prior to their trip by the Apollo Group’s public relations people, not least because the Apollo Group has incurred a lot of debt getting the hotel built and set up and needs it to be a success. Penelope dislikes the attention because she’s currently on a sabbatical from her former job as a detective with the Metropolitan Police after making a mistake on a high profile case and has been living quietly, helping out at the dog shelter run by her her parents to avoid making a decision about her future.
When the group finally arrive at the hotel, they’re expecting an amazing experience with amazing food and drink. The problem is that there doesn’t appear to be any staff at the hotel - there’s food laid out for a welcome dinner but no one to serve it. Confused, the group decide to make the most of their first night but in the morning, they wake up to find that one of their own has been brutally murdered.
Forced to take control of the situation, Penelope does her best to preserve the scene and reassure the group but with no way of contacting anyone on Earth and no sign of anyone else in the hotel, it doesn’t take a detective to realise that the killer must be one of the group. And with panic and paranoia tearing at the guests and everyone keeping secrets, it won’t be long until the killer strikes again …
Lauren Forry’s standalone crime novel is one of those books where the journey is sufficiently fun and entertaining that it isn’t until you get to the end that you realise how thin the characters are and that there are plot holes. This is not to damn it with faint praise, Forry’s writing genuinely carried me along and there were enough red herrings to keep me turning the pages so despite the issues, I still look forward to reading her next book.
I am a picky reader so although I always finish the books that I start, thin characterisation or plot holes tends to throw me out of the story and affect my enjoyment. So when I say that while reading this book it wasn’t until I got to the end that I really noticed the issues with this book, I don’t mean that in a shady way. It could be that I was just reading it at the right time but I think it’s because there is a real sense of pace in this story and that combined with the interesting set-up of the ultimate in remote locations and a limited number of suspects carried me through to the end and ensured that I didn’t really have time to think about it.
Part of the reason why I’m surprised at this is because the characterisation in the book is very thin. It’s an ensemble piece with a wide cast of 10 characters and not all of them are particularly well developed, despite the fact that Forry swaps between various characters to move the narrative forward. Penelope is probably the most well developed character - riddled with various phobias and guilt-ridden over a mistake she made when investigating her last case (the disappearance of a woman), which makes her second-guess herself when it comes to working out who has carried out the murder here. After I finished the book and thought about it, she’s drawn in quite broad brushstrokes and I wished there’d been a bit more nuance there - especially given the way that the story ends because it suggests that there was some moral ambiguity to her and I’d have liked to have seen that explored.
Still Penelope does better than her fellow guests who are, in the case of Sasha, Jackson and Dr Wyss in particular, little more than plot points. Tonya is a fairly stereotypical ruthless celebrity journalist, willing to do anything to get the story but having to face her conscience as a result of what happened to one of the celebrities she exposed. Jackson is also a fairly stereotypical as a naive but well-meaning criminology student who has some skeletons in his closet. They all do the job, throwing up red herrings and keeping you guessing as to who the killer is and what the motive is, but that is about the best you can say about them.
The big problem with the book though is that once you get to the end you realise that there are some quite major plot holes. For starters, when you find out who the culprit is, you realise that their motive for committing the crime doesn’t make a huge amount of sense. The second big issue though is that there is an accomplice and there is zero explanation for how they met, why they’re helping each other or how they managed to put the whole plan together while the accomplice’s own motive is very much something that gets mentioned in passing and would have benefited from being well developed earlier in the story.
For all my issues with it, this book did keep me turning the pages and I was engaged and wanted to find out what happened and why. As a result, I will definitely be checking out Forry’s next book to see what she does next.
The Verdict:
Lauren Forry’s standalone crime novel is one of those books where the journey is sufficiently fun and entertaining that it isn’t until you get to the end that you realise how thin the characters are and that there are plot holes. This is not to damn it with faint praise, Forry’s writing genuinely carried me along and there were enough red herrings to keep me turning the pages so despite the issues, I still look forward to reading her next book.
Ten lucky people have won a place at the most exclusive launch event of the century: the grand opening of the Hotel Artemis, the first hotel on the moon. It’s an invitation to die for. As their transport departs for its return to Earth and the doors seal shut behind them, the guests take the next leap for mankind.
However, they soon discover that all is not as it seems. The champagne may be flowing, but there is no one to pour it. Room service is available, but there is no one to deliver it. Besides the ten of them, they are completely alone.
When one of the guests is found murdered, fear spreads through the group. But that death is only the beginning. Being three days’ journey from home and with no way to contact the outside, can any of the guests survive their stay?
It’s the near future.
Penelope Strand has won a competition to be one of ten people to stay at the Hotel Artemis (the first ever all-luxury resort built on the moon by the Apollo Group that’s exclusively for millionaires and billionaires). With her are:
- Tonya Burton - a tabloid journalist specialising in celebrities who became widely villified as a result of one of her stories;
- Dr Erik Wyss - a Swiss medical doctor with an eye for the ladies;
- Dai Uchida - the Japanese billionaire CEO of an investments firm;
- Charlotte Richter - a German lawyer specialising in family law and divorce;
- Professor Alison Crane - a 20-something psychology professor;
- Robert ‘Bobby’ Rannells - an American reality TV star in his 60s;
- Jackson Smith - a 30-something Canadian accountant who is also a massive fan of Bobby Rannells;
- Sasha Eris - an architect specialising in churches and places of worship; and
- Freddy Nwankwo - a 20-something criminology major student at New York University.
Because this is the first ever stay at the Hotel Artemis there’s a huge amount of media attention and the group are heavily managed prior to their trip by the Apollo Group’s public relations people, not least because the Apollo Group has incurred a lot of debt getting the hotel built and set up and needs it to be a success. Penelope dislikes the attention because she’s currently on a sabbatical from her former job as a detective with the Metropolitan Police after making a mistake on a high profile case and has been living quietly, helping out at the dog shelter run by her her parents to avoid making a decision about her future.
When the group finally arrive at the hotel, they’re expecting an amazing experience with amazing food and drink. The problem is that there doesn’t appear to be any staff at the hotel - there’s food laid out for a welcome dinner but no one to serve it. Confused, the group decide to make the most of their first night but in the morning, they wake up to find that one of their own has been brutally murdered.
Forced to take control of the situation, Penelope does her best to preserve the scene and reassure the group but with no way of contacting anyone on Earth and no sign of anyone else in the hotel, it doesn’t take a detective to realise that the killer must be one of the group. And with panic and paranoia tearing at the guests and everyone keeping secrets, it won’t be long until the killer strikes again …
Lauren Forry’s standalone crime novel is one of those books where the journey is sufficiently fun and entertaining that it isn’t until you get to the end that you realise how thin the characters are and that there are plot holes. This is not to damn it with faint praise, Forry’s writing genuinely carried me along and there were enough red herrings to keep me turning the pages so despite the issues, I still look forward to reading her next book.
I am a picky reader so although I always finish the books that I start, thin characterisation or plot holes tends to throw me out of the story and affect my enjoyment. So when I say that while reading this book it wasn’t until I got to the end that I really noticed the issues with this book, I don’t mean that in a shady way. It could be that I was just reading it at the right time but I think it’s because there is a real sense of pace in this story and that combined with the interesting set-up of the ultimate in remote locations and a limited number of suspects carried me through to the end and ensured that I didn’t really have time to think about it.
Part of the reason why I’m surprised at this is because the characterisation in the book is very thin. It’s an ensemble piece with a wide cast of 10 characters and not all of them are particularly well developed, despite the fact that Forry swaps between various characters to move the narrative forward. Penelope is probably the most well developed character - riddled with various phobias and guilt-ridden over a mistake she made when investigating her last case (the disappearance of a woman), which makes her second-guess herself when it comes to working out who has carried out the murder here. After I finished the book and thought about it, she’s drawn in quite broad brushstrokes and I wished there’d been a bit more nuance there - especially given the way that the story ends because it suggests that there was some moral ambiguity to her and I’d have liked to have seen that explored.
Still Penelope does better than her fellow guests who are, in the case of Sasha, Jackson and Dr Wyss in particular, little more than plot points. Tonya is a fairly stereotypical ruthless celebrity journalist, willing to do anything to get the story but having to face her conscience as a result of what happened to one of the celebrities she exposed. Jackson is also a fairly stereotypical as a naive but well-meaning criminology student who has some skeletons in his closet. They all do the job, throwing up red herrings and keeping you guessing as to who the killer is and what the motive is, but that is about the best you can say about them.
The big problem with the book though is that once you get to the end you realise that there are some quite major plot holes. For starters, when you find out who the culprit is, you realise that their motive for committing the crime doesn’t make a huge amount of sense. The second big issue though is that there is an accomplice and there is zero explanation for how they met, why they’re helping each other or how they managed to put the whole plan together while the accomplice’s own motive is very much something that gets mentioned in passing and would have benefited from being well developed earlier in the story.
For all my issues with it, this book did keep me turning the pages and I was engaged and wanted to find out what happened and why. As a result, I will definitely be checking out Forry’s next book to see what she does next.
The Verdict:
Lauren Forry’s standalone crime novel is one of those books where the journey is sufficiently fun and entertaining that it isn’t until you get to the end that you realise how thin the characters are and that there are plot holes. This is not to damn it with faint praise, Forry’s writing genuinely carried me along and there were enough red herrings to keep me turning the pages so despite the issues, I still look forward to reading her next book.
