When American millionaire Theodore Racksole impulsively buys the grandest hotel in London — simply because a waiter refuses to serve his daughter a plain steak and beer — he expects a quiet investment. Instead he finds himself entangled in kidnapped princes, secret societies, and murder. Arnold Bennett’s The Grand Babylon Hôtel (1902) is a delicious Edwardian thriller written at top speed and with great wit.
Better known today for his Five Towns novels, Bennett proved here that he could write rattling popular entertainment with as much assurance as literary fiction. Download the free EPUB for a charming, fast-moving mystery set in the gilded world of Edwardian luxury.