She Treads Softly: The Launch Party

Monday, September 30, 2024

The Launch Party

The Launch Party by Lauren Forry
10/15/24 (originally in 2023); 400 pages
Bonnier Zaffre Books UK

The Launch Party by Lauren Forry is a highly recommended locked room mystery set in the first hotel on the moon.

Ten lucky people have won a free trip and the opportunity to be the first guests at the grand opening of the Hotel Artemis, the first hotel on the moon. After their arrival it quickly becomes clear that things have gone badly awry. While champagne and a buffet dinner are waiting, all their bags are piled up in the lobby and there is no staff available anywhere. In fact they appear to be completely alone in the hotel. After the guests decide to find their rooms and then rejoin each other to drink and dine the night away.

The next day the guests are shocked to see one of their own dead. The group pushes the emergency alarm, calling for help back at the hotel, which is at least three days out. What follows is a search for who is the killer among them, trying to figure out the layout of the hotel, and striving to not be the next one targeted.

With a police detective, Penelope Strand, and an investigative reporter, Tonya Burton, among the guests, there is sure to be an investigation. Also among the guests are Dr. Erik Wyss, Dai Uchida (a billionaire), Frau Charlotte Richter, Alison Crane, Robert (Bobby) Rannells, Jackson Smith, Sasha Eris, and Freddy Nwankwo. The characters are unique enough to easily follow who's who. All the characters, except Penelope, are suspects.

After setting any and all disbelief aside, I was totally entrench in this entertaining character- driven locked room murder mystery taking place in a unique setting. The descriptions of their accommodations is interesting as you follow the investigation Penelope undertakes. The atmosphere is appropriately creepy and frightening, after all they are all on the moon with no support staff or help in sight. The tension increases right up to the satisfying conclusion.

The Launch Party is a satisfying mystery in an unusual setting and is certainly worth reading for all mystery lovers. Thanks to Bonnier Zaffre Books UK for providing me with an advance reader's copy via Edelweiss. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.