Review: Yikes! Completely split opinion
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 26, 2011
Part of the book I loved: the vignettes of the different situations at each hotel were wonderful. Some were resolved, some weren't, but that's what would happen if you were a traveling hotel executive swooping in to troubleshoot a specific problem. A real hotel employee may get a glimpse inside someone's life but would probably never know the beginning or end of the story, and for the issues involving hotel staff, corporate would fly in, assess, and then leave clean up/details to onsite management. The author makes you feel like you're looking over Cathy's shoulder as she briefly crosses paths with each guest/hotel problem and the scenes were very well done.The book could be great if the entire thing were about Cathy being a hotel exec and had much more of the hotel stories.The three stars all apply to the hotel problems. Now on to the rest...New chapters begin with a description of each new country our heroine visits. The problem is the descriptions are dull and don't add anything to the story. They read like the author made a list of foreign places, then did a 15 minute Wikipedia read on each to get enough detail to make the writing sound exotic. Didn't work.**SPOILERS**The plot - epic FAIL. The plot is ridiculous: Cathy is some sort of spy but just has meetings? She has to keep her relationship a secret? Why? Would have been a lot more interesting if Cathy's character was an assassin all along. Reads like the author tried so hard to make things mysterious they were never fleshed out at all or explained. How exactly did Cathy know her relationship could now be public? The mysterious "retired" spy pops out of nowhere to do her killing for her? UGH.