Death at the Old Hotel: A Bartender Brian McNulty Mystery (Bartender Brian McNulty Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Con Lehane (Author)

Book Description

Series: Bartender Brian McNulty Mysteries | Publication Date: June 12, 2007

Tensions are high and the dangers multiply as New York City bartender and man-about-the-mean-streets Brian McNulty---always a sucker for the plight of the little guy---joins forces with a motley crew of workers from the old Savoy Hotel.
 
McNulty has once more run afoul of the powers that be in the New York City hotel and restaurant industry and finds himself exiled to a down-at-the heels hotel in, for him, the far reaches of civilization---Manhattan, west of Eighth Avenue. Not long into his tenure, a vicious attack on one of his fellow bartenders raises the stakes and puts everyone on edge, and it doesn't take much for the hotel manager to provoke the outraged workers into a strike. Once they hit the bricks, all hell breaks loose, and it isn't long until the bodies start to fall.
 
The cops focus in on two of McNulty's pals, a renegade Irishman and a pretty, young waitress from Brooklyn, both with closets full of secrets and buckets full of problems of their own. McNulty thinks the cops, as usual, are barking up the wrong tree, but that's the least of his problems. The hits in this particular instance have angered the gods of gangsterland, and someone has determined that McNulty is a problem.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Trouble is brewing at Brian McNulty's new gig at the Savoy Hotel in Lehane's intriguing third mystery to feature the New York bartender (after 2005's What Goes Around Comes Around). Fellow barman and union rabble-rouser Barney Saunders suspects the hotel's new manager is cashing in on corruption between union bigwigs and organized crime. An all-out strike turns violent when flirty waitress Betsy Tierney rushes to commiserate with Barney on the picket line, and her jealous husband, one of New York's finest, attacks Barney, who's then loyally defended by Brian. That evening, the hotel manager and Betsy's cop husband are both murdered, and Barney becomes the prime suspect. McNulty investigates, suspecting a union middleman of both murders. Lehane does a good job of depicting the underbelly of the city's working class. Readers will look forward to more outings from his world-weary, savvy and imperfect protagonist. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

New York City bartender Brian McNulty returns for a third round of amateur sleuthing. It's the Christmas season, and the bar where Brian works is in the midst of some nasty union troubles. Adding to the tension is a manager who rubs everybody the wrong way, to the point where the staff up and walk out. When Brian's pal is roughed up by some union thugs, and the despised manager is murdered, Brian is once more thrust into the role of detective. Lehane has come up with an intriguing premise, and he turns it into an engaging narrative, with a good mixture of wit and drama. The story's milieu (bars, unions, organized crime) give it the feel of a 1930s gangster flick, and Lehane makes the most of it. Brian, the protagonist and narrator, is one of those likable-but-tough characters, and his shoulders seem big enough to support at least a few more installments. Let's hope the author keeps the bar open for quite a while. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (June 12, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031232300X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312323004
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,940,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Con Lehane is a mystery writer, living outside Washington, DC. He's published three books featuring New York City bartender Brian McNulty. You can read reviews of them on his web site www.conlehane.com/reviews.html. He has just completed (writing the last few chapters at the Dairy Hollow Writers' Colony) a new mystery, featuring New York City librarian Raymond Ambler (who happens to be a friend of the aforementioned McNulty) that he hopes is the beginning of a new series. Over the years, he has worked as a college professor, a union organizer, a labor journalist, and has tended bar at two-dozen or so drinking establishments.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars ... there isn't a character or situation that rings false!, November 19, 2007

By 

Liz at reviewedbyliz.com "Because life is too... (Cedar Springs, Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death at the Old Hotel: A Bartender Brian McNulty Mystery (Bartender Brian McNulty Mysteries) (Hardcover)

DEATH AT THE OLD HOTEL is the third book in the Brian McNulty series. Brian is a bartender at the Savoy Hotel in New York City in the early 1990's. The workers at the hotel are between a rock and a hard place - the hotel is a dumping ground for union malcontents who have had conflicts with the union management, but who put up with the low pay and difficult working conditions because they need to keep their jobs. But when the corruption at the hotel becomes obvious and the enforcers and the management start to whittle down their numbers, the hotel staff takes action and goes on strike. And Brian finds himself in charge of the striking staff.

The strikers' solidarity is jeopardized by both conflicts amongst themselves and by two murders. Everyone on the picket line has a lot to lose - they are risking their jobs, deportation, and accusations of murder are in the air. Brian is feeling the pressure from them, the union, the police, and from his labor-organizer father. At some point, Brian realizes that this strike isn't going to end well for everyone and that all he can do is find the best solution for himself and the bulk of his fellow workers.

In THE OLD HOTEL, Lehane has drawn on his previous experience as both a bartender and a union organizer to bring detail and a fantastic realism to this book. The situation is a tough one and there is an undercurrent of danger that colors all the actions of the characters, who alternate between determined, scrappy, and desperate.

Lehane's writing is wonderful and there isn't a character or situation that rings false. Because the characters seem so real, the risks also seem real and I was riveted, waiting to see how Brian would extricate himself and his fellows from jeopardy. And Lehane stays true to life to the end, which, like real life, isn't happy for everyone.

Favorite character? Brian himself. Did I guess it? No - and my single complaint about this book would be that we don't get the crucial piece if information until right near the end. Will I read another? Yes.

3.0 out of 5 stars An O.K. read, December 27, 2011

By 

Thomas Grover (Naples, Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Death at the Old Hotel: A Bartender Brian McNulty Mystery (Bartender Brian McNulty Mysteries) (Hardcover)

The protagonist in the story is Brian McNulty, a bartender at a West Side Hotel in New York. His Union goes on strike and shortly thereafter the bodies start to pile up. The hotel manager is murdered and later an abusive Cop and Husband of a beautiful waitress at the Hotel is killed. McNulty and his friend Barney, An IRA veteran from Ireland find themselves in the middle of solving the crimes, while dealing with such personal issues as Barney's love for the recently widowed waitress, or perhaps Brian's love for her.

I found the story line a bit overloaded with peripheral issues such as the divorced Brian's teen age son and ex wife, and it was difficult for me to get really interested in any of the characters.

The story is OK for a day at the beach.

4.0 out of 5 stars McNulty keeps me entertained!, March 26, 2009

By 

M. T. Guzman "squeakychu" (Rockville, MD, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Death at the Old Hotel: A Bartender Brian McNulty Mystery (Bartender Brian McNulty Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Brian McNulty is New York bartender who always seems to get into the middle of a murder intrigue. He's also the son of a Communist union man as well as the father of a teenaged son who now lives with Brian's ex-wife. Brian, also a labor organizer, arranges a strike at the hotel in which he works after a waitress was fired from her job. Two deaths occur soon afterward, and Brian goes about trying to figure out what happened so that neither of the murders are pinned on him.

This is the second book about Brian McNulty that I've read and enjoyed. It's a bit hard for me because I'm not a "mystery" reader, and I read this book only because it had been given to me by Con Lehane, a local author. I'm happy to report that I found this book a fun read. Although I'm not great about following convoluted plots, I gave it a go and happily didn't have to remember too many characters. I remembered McNulty's "Pop" (his dad) and Kevin (his son) from a previous book. McNulty is a character who is always bumbling around and coming to wrong conclusions. That was okay because he kept me smiling with his wry sense of humor and great one-liners while he tried to decipher the murderer's identity. Beside, I also liked the cat who kept coming and going in and out of McNulty's window.