The Paradox Hotel

November 1, 2021
Hart follows up his highly praised The Warehouse (2019) with this nifty murder mystery set at a hotel. But this is not your typical hotel. The Paradox Hotel caters to the clientele of a government-run time-travel facility. January Cole, the hotel's security chief, has a lot on her plate, what with a bunch of trillionaires coming to the Paradox, each with his or her own special demands, and the last thing she needs is a murder. At least, she thinks there's been a murder. She's pretty sure there's a body, even though she's the only person who can see it. There's a distinct possibility she's imagining it, but there's also the possibility that the corpse exists in a different time, and that January's getting glimpses of the body because she is not, shall we say, entirely anchored in the now. This wildly ambitious, well-executed genre-bender is suspenseful, clever, and funny.

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Starred review from November 29, 2021
Time travel has been monetized in this stellar SF thriller from Hart (The Warehouse). The U.S. government charges the 1% “hundreds of thousands of dollars to see the first-ever public showing of Hamlet or visit the Library of Alexandria,” but it’s still losing money on the hyperexpensive operation. That leads to a privatization initiative, and several trillionaires arrive at the Paradox Hotel to make their proposal to buy the Einstein Intercentury Timeport. Their presence is a headache for hotel security head January Cole, who’s suffering deleterious health side effects from entering the time stream frequently and overwhelming grief from the accidental death of her lover, Mena, a waitress at the Paradox. When January sees a stabbed corpse in a guest room that no one else can see, including her smart-ass AI assistant, Ruby, she endeavors to determine whether there’s a real murder to investigate or whether it’s an apparition that’s a symptom of her illness. The twists keep coming without simplifying January’s mental struggles in this impressive melding of creative plotting and three-dimensional characters. Hart remains a writer to watch. Agent: Josh Getzler, HG Literary.

Starred review from February 1, 2022
Timey-wimey mysteries vex a singular hotel's damaged in-house detective. In 2072, those with hundreds of thousands of dollars to spare can use the federally owned Einstein Intercentury Timeport to see Shakespeare stage Hamlet, watch the Battle of Gettysburg, or witness countless other bygone events. A tram ride away from Einstein is the Paradox Hotel, where guests can obtain costuming, earpiece translators, and era-specific vaccines. Individual "flights" are relatively safe, but frequent travel can be risky; just ask former time cop January Cole, who spent her early career riding the timestream to prevent tourists from altering history and is now Unstuck, a condition that causes her perception to--temporarily and without warning--jump into her past or future. January left the field years ago to police the Paradox, but though the move has done little to slow her ailment's progression, she refuses to retire, as her slips often provide glimpses of her late girlfriend, Mena, who used to work on-site. The U.S. government is hemorrhaging money, so a senator and four trillionaires are holding a summit at the Paradox to discuss Einstein's privatization. The security logistics alone are a nightmare, but factor in strange time fluctuations and a phantom corpse in Room 526 and you have the recipe for a disaster only January can thwart--provided her mind stays put. 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.

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