
Published: 04/03/2021

Mining a hip brand of modern-day noir, Buchholz's blistering hostage thriller fizzes with unforgettable characters and heart-pounding set pieces as a dozen armed men burst into a Hamburg bar during a birthday party.
Winner of the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Prize 2022
Chastity Riley and her friends are held hostage in a hotel bar by twelve armed men set on revenge, in a searing, breathtakingly original, and unexpectedly moving new thriller from the 'Queen of Krimi'.
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.
Publisher: Orenda Books
ISBN: 9781913193546
Number of pages: 276
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Simone Buchholz writes with real authority and a pungent, noir-ish 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
'[A] nerve-racking narrative... [with] a cunning climax that is shocking and deeply romantic' - The Times
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“Harbour Noir!”
Lyrical writing style and an absolutely cracking translation, so this short, sharp hostage tale really takes this series down a new dark and dirty alleyway. Buchholz also does some unusual backstory from some... More

“Brilliantly observed!”
"Hotel Cartagena" by Simone Buchholz is the fourth book in the Chastity Riley series to be published by Orenda in the UK. It's the first I've read (I now want to read them all!) and works well as a... More
“High stakes hostage drama - loved it”
Readers of the Chastity Riley series will be used to our favourite public Prosecutor being called to the scene of various strange and often deadly crime scenes. This time around she doesn't have to travel very... More
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