Nightmare Time

By Hugh Pentecost

A lost boy draws Pierre Chambrun into an international conspiracy.

Guy Willis knows that if he is ever in trouble at the Beaumont Hotel, he can trust Pierre Chambrun. The manager of this world-famous Manhattan institution, Chambrun owes his life to young Guy's father -- an Air Force intelligence operative who once rescued the unflappable Frenchman from a gang of terrorists. When Guy's parents disappear during a stay at the Beaumont, a priest turns up and approaches the boy, claiming to be an old family friend sent to take care of him. Guy doesn't trust the phony padre -- or the pistol in his shoulder holster -- one bit, and screams for Chambrun to help.

Chambrun dispatches the ersatz priest, but finding Guy's parents will be more than a matter of visiting the lost and found. Major Willis has been kidnapped, and if he is not recovered, it will be more than just a mishap for the hotel -- it will be a catastrophe for all of the United States.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784087944

Hugh Pentecost

Hugh Pentecost was a penname of mystery author Judson Philips (1903–1989). Born in Massachusetts, Philips came of age during the golden age of pulp magazines, and spent the 1930s writing suspense fiction and sports stories for a number of famous pulps. His first book was Hold ’Em Girls! The Intelligent Women’s Guide to Men and Football (1936). In 1939, his crime story Cancelled in Red won the Red Badge prize, launching his career as a novelist. Philips went on to write nearly one hundred books over the next five decades. His best-known characters were Pierre Chambrun, a sleuthing hotel manager who first appeared in The Cannibal Who Overate (1962), and the one-legged investigative reporter Peter Styles, introduced in Laughter Trap (1964). Although he spent his last years with failing vision and poor health, Philips continued writing daily. His final novel was the posthumously published Pattern for Terror (1989). 

Reviews for Nightmare Time

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I enjoy Pierre Chambrun very much, the story, not so much.Pierre Chambrun is the manager of a four-star hotel in New York. His little world. It runs like clockwork and all of the people who work there orbit around Chambrun. Someone has thrown a monkey wrench into the works though. Two special guests are missing and their 11 year old son has claimed Chambrun for his champion and guardian. Chambrun takes this responsibility seriously and when one of his employees is murdered, there is no turning back. The race is on to find the culprit before the boys parents are killed too.I love the whole concept of the hotel manager as a little demigod of his territory. Sadly, for me, the story is stilted, the characters are not developed and I knew the villain from the beginning.