Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel (Harvest Original) (Paperback)

The book tells the story of guests staying at the hotel, some are interesting but others are disapointing.

I much preferred the first Finbars Hotel book as the individual authors carried the charecters (especially the staff) across the chapters considerably better that this book.

OK for an airport read!

One characterization that does stand out among the rest, though, is that of a father who, in many respects at his wits' end (even quite literally so), pays a last visit to his career-woman daughter in a desperate effort to retrace the steps of his life and find again what they both have lost. (Room 102: "Da Da Da - Daa.") You might argue that as a type he, too, is an Irish cliche and in fact, would have been so long before Frank McCourt resurrected them in "Angela's Ashes;" and I would not fight you over the issue. Worse yet, I found the daughter and her fashion world entourage to be so badly stereotyped that I was actually ready to slam the book shut a couple of times halfway through the story. Yet, something about the father truly touched me. - I also thought that this story and "The Debt Collector" (Room 103) had the only truly well-done endings in the book; most of the others either fizzled out rather half-heartedly or came to a sudden, abrupt and more or less random stop.

Unfortunately, in this and also in other respects the obvious centerpiece of the book, "The Master Key" (Room 105) - the story which is designed to hold the book together in a similar fashion as does "The Night Manager" in the first "Finbar" book - is particularly disappointing. It is also the biggest offender as far as consistency with regard to the recurring characters and the hotel's history are concerned; for example, the rather seedy and not at all respectable place of "Finbar I" is suddenly is described as a (still somewhat run-down, but essentially honorable) hotel for families and traveling salesmen right around the same time when "Finbar I" had clergy, cops and the underworld converge in the hotel's very own back rooms.

My overall favorite entry is the story taking place in the penthouse, "Tarzan's Irish Rose," which is charming in an offhand fashion while at the same time sporting a rather sarcastic tone. Stylistically well-done and driven by an emphatically drawn, quirky protagonist is also "The Wedding of the Pughs" (Room 106); but alas, this story, too fizzles at the end and left me thinking "What? That's it?" Overall therefore, "Finbar II" unfortunately cannot sustain the high level set by the original "Finbar's Hotel" collection. It is an only mildly entertaining compilation and very inconsistent; both as far as the quality of the writing is concerned as well as with respect to those elements of the contents that are supposed to hold the book together and provide a bridge to "Finbar I."