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Transcript

Welcome to Mystery Books Podcast, where you’ll discover new mystery books and authors. I’m USA Today bestselling mystery author, Sara Rosett. I’m also a bookworm who specializes in the mystery genre. I love sharing my favorite mystery discoveries from classic golden age novels to contemporary cozies.

This episode is all about The Socialite’s Guide to Murder by S. K. Golden. The Socialite’s Guide to Murder was published in 2022, and it’s the first book in the Pinnacle Hotel mystery series. 

Blurb

Here’s the blurb. The hotel was her refuge, but scandal was afoot. A killer stalks the halls in this series debut.

And the first line is, I was in the middle of my two o’clock appointment when a shadow fell over me. 

Settings and Characters

For the characters, we have Evelyn, who is a wealthy socialite who lives in a Park Avenue hotel, the Pinnacle. She’s the daughter of the owner and the time period is 1958. And Evelyn loves and admires Marilyn Monroe. She replicates Marilyn Monroe’s looks for her personal style. And she has a talent for finding things, and she’s often overlooked. Another detail about her is she loves planning parties.

Before I mention the other characters, I’m going to talk a little bit about the setting, the Pinnacle Hotel, because it’s pretty important to the story. It’s an exclusive Park Avenue hotel, it’s very high class, and in the book, you find out as it goes on that Evelyn doesn’t leave the hotel, and in her mind, in the beginning of the book, she’s like, why should I? Everything she needs is in the hotel. She can order clothes. She can eat. She can meet her friends there. She has a very nice Exclusive suite so in her mind, especially early in the book. She’s like, why would I leave? There’s no reason to. But as the story goes on you realize that there is a reason that she stays there and other characters do confront her about basically being a recluse at this hotel?  And she’s a young woman, so it’s an odd situation, but it’s very interesting. It’s an interesting setup. And having come from just recently staying in a big hotel in downtown Denver, I enjoyed thinking about this book and planning this podcast while I was there because a hotel is a very interesting setting, especially for a mystery.  It’s great because you have people checking in and checking out, so you have a rotating cast of guests. But then you also have the hotel, which it functions almost like a machine. You’ve got people doing their jobs. You’ve got all these things that happen on a routine, but then you have the people who work there and they can form like a family aspect to the hotel and to the story.  So I enjoyed that part of this book. And I hope that in the future series, we get more of the characters in the hotel. There was some in this book, but mostly it was focused on a smaller group. 

And so I’ll go into the rest of the characters now. So the other characters are Henry Fox. He’s a handsome film star and Evelyn is his fake girlfriend.  When I read this, I thought of Rock Hudson. I wondered if he was modeled on Rock Hudson as inspiration for Henry Fox. 

Then we have Malcolm Cooper, Mac is his nickname. He’s a dog walker, bellboy, waiter, and Evelyn’s friend, and he’s British. And you find out early on that there’s, he’s got some unusual and interesting characteristics and interesting background.

And then the workers at the hotel create the cast of minor characters, and many of them become suspects in an art theft that takes place at a party at the hotel. And then later they become suspects after a murder takes place at the Pinnacle.  Evelyn recruits Mac to help her discover the truth about the art theft and the murder. 

Themes and Tropes

The Socialite’s Guide to Murder had some very interesting themes. One was identity, which I always loved this theme. In this book, it explores the line between admiration and imitation because Evelyn really admires Marilyn Monroe and uses her style as her personal style. So there’s questions about sublimating your own personality and taking on somebody else’s and what is the line between, “Oh, I just love this and I want to imitate this because I love it”, and how much of that is suppressing who you are? And how much of your personality, are you gleaning from this image that you’re imitating? Very interesting questions about that.

 And then, another theme was assumptions based on physical appearance, and they’re not always right. People dismiss Evelyn because of her appearance.  She’s a wealthy young woman who lives on her own, but she’s inherited her wealth, so she doesn’t really have to do anything. A lot of people tend to write her off, and so she’s not what people think she is, and other characters aren’t what people think they are. Very common theme in mysteries, but I like the way it played out in this one.

Next we have tropes. You have the spoiled rich heiress, and that’s what people think Evelyn is, that she’s silly and foolish and like in modern terms we call her an airhead, but this is the late 1950s So I don’t think they would have used that term, but that’s how people think of her at the same time. 

The other trope we have is the poor little rich girl.  She’s wealthy. She has all these physical thing. She has a luxurious way of living, but she really doesn’t have close relationships. She talks to her father on the phone a couple of times in the book, I think, and that’s it. He’s not really there. And he’s portrayed as very distant. Outwardly, it seems that Evelyn has everything that she could ever want or desire, but that’s only the external. It’s her internal needs that are lacking. 

And so that bleeds into the next trope. found family, which is, the people at the hotel become her family. By the end of the book, they’re much closer than they were before. 

The Story Behind The Story

All right, on to a few details  about the story behind the story and some fun facts.

Book two, The Socialite’s Guide to Death and Dating will be out in October, 2023. And S. K. Golden’s bio on her website states that Besides writing, she loves reading all genres, bullet journaling, baking, Bob’s Burgers and any reality show on Bravo. 

Recommendations

Here are some read-a-likes for you if you enjoy hotel settings.

You would probably enjoy The Maid by Nita Prose. It was very popular recently, and it has the same type of setting, a very exclusive hotel in New York. The main character is a maid. She has some neurodivergent issues, I guess you’d call them, and so she is not real good at distinguishing people’s true motives.  And so that becomes a factor when she’s involved in a murder. So if you like the setting of a hotel, modern setting with some of these themes, then you would enjoy that book. 

The classic book for readers who enjoy golden age mysteries that have a hotel setting is the At Bertram’s Hotel by Agatha Christie.  Can’t go wrong with a Christie book in a list. 

And then there’s another book called Murder at the Hotel 911 by Audrey Keown, I believe is how you say the last name, it’s K E O W N. It has a similar setting and some similar themes, but it’s set in modern day at a historic hotel. So you got a blend there of the classic and modern.

Another book that I’ve just started, I haven’t finished it. And it has a little bit more of a maybe a little bit darker tone to it, more of a little bit of a mystery plus a thriller aspect to it, but I’m going to go ahead and list it here because there are plenty of books set in B&Bs, bed and breakfast, hotel type settings.  There’s not as many that I can think of that are set in actual hotel, similar to the setting of the book we’re talking about today. So I’m going to give you this one as well. The Ice Hotel by Hania Allen, H A N I A  A L L E N. That is an unusual setting, the Ice Hotel inside the Arctic Circle. 

Two questions for you today.  What is your favorite mystery set in a hotel and what is your favorite hotel to visit and would it make a good setting for a mystery? So I guess that’s three questions. You can find me on Instagram at Sara Rosett, no H on Sara and no E on Rosett, or leave a comment in the show notes for this episode, which will be at sararosett.com/socialite. 

Thanks to the publisher for sending a review copy. All opinions are my own. I hope this podcast has let you revisit a favorite book or perhaps helps you discover a new author to try. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, I hope you’ll tell a fellow mystery reader. Thanks for listening. I’ll see you next time.