When you make a living solving other people's problems... It's good to be aware of your own. In the next ten seconds several facts presented themselves to me: That Richard has already formed the same ambition as I had; That, with his academic prowess and a family who did not so much support him as physically heave him into useful niches, he would have a better chance of fulfilling it; That, unless I could defy precedent and probability, I would find myself for ever half a lap behind. arranging their histories like the index entries in a biography, the sequences of cause and effect that have...

Howard York - self-made man and founder of London's extraordinary Hotel Alpha - is one of those people who makes you feel that anything is possible. He is idolized by his blind adopted son, Chas, and Graham, the inimitable concierge, whose lives revolve around the Alpha. But when two mysterious disappearances raise questions that no one seems willing to answer, Chas and Graham must ask themselves whether Howard's vision of the perfect hotel has been built on secrets as well as dreams ...Captivating, brilliant and full of surprises, Hotel Alpha is an ingenious novel about the incidental and...