Hotel Cartagena (4) (Chastity Riley)

WINNER OF THE 2022 CWA CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION DAGGER

‘Simone Buchholz writes with real authority and a pungent, noir-is sense of time and space … a palpable hit’ Independent

'Reading Buchholz is like walking on firecrackers … a truly unique voice in crime fiction’ Graeme Macrae Burnet

‘If Philip Marlowe and Bernie Gunther had a literary love child, it might just explain Chastity Riley – Simone Buchholz’s tough, acerbic, utterly engaging central character’ William Ryan

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Twenty floors above the shimmering lights of the Hamburg docks, Public Prosecutor Chastity Riley is celebrating a birthday with friends in a hotel bar when twelve heavily armed men pull out guns, and take everyone hostage. Among the hostages is Konrad Hoogsmart, the hotel owner, who is being targeted by a young man whose life – and family – have been destroyed by Hoogsmart’s actions.

With the police looking on from outside – their colleagues’ lives at stake – and Chastity on the inside, increasingly ill from an unexpected case of sepsis, the stage is set for a dramatic confrontation … and a devastating outcome for the team … all live streamed in a terrifying bid for revenge.

Crackling with energy and populated by a cast of unforgettable characters, Hotel Cartagena is a searing, relevant thriller that will leave you breathless.

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Praise for the Chastity Riley series

‘Caustic, incisive prose. A street-smart, gutsy heroine. A timely and staggeringly stylish thriller’ Will Carver

‘With plenty of dry humour and a good old dash of despair, Simone Buchholz is an unconventional, refreshing new voice’ Crime Fiction Lover

‘Lyrical and pithy’ Sunday Times 

‘With brief, pacy chapters and fizzling dialogue, this almost feels like American procedural noir and not a translation’ Maxim Jakubowski, Crime Time

‘There is a fantastic pace to the story which keeps you hooked from the first sentence all the way to the end … a unique voice that delivers a stylish story’ New Books Magazine

‘A smart and witty book that shines a probing spotlight on society’ CultureFly

‘Fans of Brookmyre could do worse than checking out Simone Buchholz, a star of the German crime lit scene who has been deftly translated into English by Rachel Ward’ Goethe Institute

‘Stripped back in style and deadpan in voice … a scintillating romp around the German criminal underworld and back’ Doug Johnstone, Big Issue

'By turns lyrical and pithy, this adventure set in the melting pot of contemporary Hamburg has a plot and a sensibility that both owe something to mind-altering substances. Lots of fun’ Sunday Times

‘Disgraced state prosecutor Chastity Riley chases round the dive bars of the port city pursuing and being pursued by a beguiling cast of cops, criminals and chums, delivering scalding one-liners as she goes’ The Times

‘Great sparkling energy, humour and stylistic verve … and the story itself is gripping and pacey’ Rosie Goldsmith, European Literature Network

‘A must-read, stylish and highly original take on the detective novel, written with great skill and popping with great characters’ Judith O’Reilly, author of Killing State

'Constantly surprising … an original, firecracker of a read' LoveReading


Chastity Riley and her friends are held hostage in a hotel bar by twelve armed men set on revenge, in a searing, breathtakingly original new thriller from the ‘Queen of Krimi’.

‘Simone Buchholz writes with real authority and a pungent, noir-is sense of time and space … a palpable hit’ Independent

'Reading Buchholz is like walking on firecrackers … a truly unique voice in crime fiction’ Graeme Macrae Burnet

‘If Philip Marlowe and Bernie Gunther had a literary love child, it might just explain Chastity Riley – Simone Buchholz’s tough, acerbic, utterly engaging central character’ William Ryan

_______________

Twenty floors above the shimmering lights of the Hamburg docks, Public Prosecutor Chastity Riley is celebrating a birthday with friends in a hotel bar when twelve heavily armed men pull out guns, and take everyone hostage. Among the hostages is Konrad Hoogsmart, the hotel owner, who is being targeted by a young man whose life – and family – have been destroyed by Hoogsmart’s actions.

With the police looking on from outside – their colleagues’ lives at stake – and Chastity on the inside, increasingly ill from an unexpected case of sepsis, the stage is set for a dramatic confrontation … and a devastating outcome for the team … all live streamed in a terrifying bid for revenge.

Crackling with energy and populated by a cast of unforgettable characters, Hotel Cartagena is a searing, relevant thriller that will leave you breathless.

_______________

Praise for the Chastity Riley series

‘Caustic, incisive prose. A street-smart, gutsy heroine. A timely and staggeringly stylish thriller’ Will Carver

‘With plenty of dry humour and a good old dash of despair, Simone Buchholz is an unconventional, refreshing new voice’ Crime Fiction Lover

‘Lyrical and pithy’ Sunday Times 

‘With brief, pacy chapters and fizzling dialogue, this almost feels like American procedural noir and not a translation’ Maxim Jakubowski, Crime Time

‘There is a fantastic pace to the story which keeps you hooked from the first sentence all the way to the end … a unique voice that delivers a stylish story’ New Books Magazine

‘A smart and witty book that shines a probing spotlight on society’ CultureFly

‘Fans of Brookmyre could do worse than checking out Simone Buchholz, a star of the German crime lit scene who has been deftly translated into English by Rachel Ward’ Goethe Institute

‘Stripped back in style and deadpan in voice … a scintillating romp around the German criminal underworld and back’ Doug Johnstone, Big Issue

'By turns lyrical and pithy, this adventure set in the melting pot of contemporary Hamburg has a plot and a sensibility that both owe something to mind-altering substances. Lots of fun’ Sunday Times

‘Disgraced state prosecutor Chastity Riley chases round the dive bars of the port city pursuing and being pursued by a beguiling cast of cops, criminals and chums, delivering scalding one-liners as she goes’ The Times

‘Great sparkling energy, humour and stylistic verve … and the story itself is gripping and pacey’ Rosie Goldsmith, European Literature Network

‘A must-read, stylish and highly original take on the detective novel, written with great skill and popping with great characters’ Judith O’Reilly, author of Killing State

'Constantly surprising … an original, firecracker of a read' LoveReading

Rachel Ward is a freelance translator of literary and creative texts from German and French to English. Having always been an avid reader and enjoyed word games and puzzles, she discovered a flair for languages at school and went on to study modern languages at the University of East Anglia. She spent the third year working as a language assistant at two grammar schools in Saaebrücken, Germany. During her final year, she realised that she wanted to put these skills and passions to use professionally and applied for UEA’s MA in Literary Translation, which she completed in 2002. Her published translations include Traitor by Gudrun Pausewang and Red Rage by Brigitte Blobel, and she is a Member of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting.
Follow Rachel on Twitter @FwdTranslations, on her blog www.adiscounttickettoeverywhere.wordpress.com and on her website www.forwardtranslations.co.uk

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau in 1972. At university, she studied Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to be a journalist at the prestigious Henri-Nannen-School in Hamburg. In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award, and second place in the German Crime Fiction Prize, for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. The next in the Chastity Riley series, Beton Rouge, won the Radio Bremen Crime Fiction Award and Best Economic Crime Novel 2017. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son.