Murder at Graverly Manor

March 1, 2009
Vancouver's Graverly Manor Bed and Breakfast is for sale, and amateur sleuth Trevor Lambert ("Murder at Hotel Cinema"), out of work again as a five-star hotel manager, makes an offer. Far removed from his usual surroundings, Lambert shows his mettle in determining if the Manor is haunted and just what Lady Graverly is hiding.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2009
Each of the three novels in this ongoing series is as different as the hotels that Craigs appealing, fair-minded, slightly nave, workaholic yet decent hero has managed. We first met Trevor Lambert in an upscale, state-of-the-art hotel in New York (Murder at the Universe, 2007). Then he moved to Los Angeles as manager of a relatively small boutique hotel (Murder at Hotel Cinema, 2008). Now he has left the shallow Hollywood scene and is poised to become the owner-manager of an elite bed-and-breakfast in his native Vancouver. The elderly proprietress is willing to give him a great deal on the Victorian mansion in return for three months of sweat equity. As he cooks breakfast, makes beds, does the laundry, and tries to figure out the antiquated reservation system, Trevor becomes concerned about disappearing staff members and guests, strange noises, and a decades-old family puzzle. We end up with a sometimes humorous gothic mystery planted in the present day. Hotelier Craig does an excellent job of solving the improbable crimes and painting a fascinating look at behind-the-scenes hotel life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)

February 9, 2009
Swashbuckling hotelier Trevor Lambert watched the last place he managed burn to the ground in Craig's Murder at Hotel Cinema
(2008). Now, in his entertaining third outing, Lambert's back in Vancouver, Canada, near his family but jobless and depressed until he discovers Graverly Manor, an inn, for sale near picturesque Lost Lagoon. He decides his own B&B might be just what the doctor ordered, even if it's haunted by its former owner, Lord Andrew Graverly, and Graverly's chambermaid lover. Andrew's eccentric octogenarian widow, Elinor, hires Lambert to manage on a trial basis to see if he's serious. Clarissa, a pretty guest looking into the inn's past, distracts Lambert briefly as he deals with strange sounds, awful smells, a semidemonic cat and murder. Craig's lively mix of the macabre with his ever-urbane humor keeps this neo-Victorian melodrama from collapsing from its familiar haunted house theme.