The Hotel Guest

I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at first. *Another* privileged-academics-gone-bad story? But *The Hotel Guest* disarmed me by making Kit’s complicity as compelling as the Olympians’ schemes. Hennigan writes class resentment with a surgeon’s precision—Kit’s shame over her secondhand clothes, her hunger to be *seen* by these people, feels painfully real. The mystery unfolds in layers: first as a missing-person case, then as a dissection of how easily intelligence curdles into cruelty. I did, however, find the midsection’s philosophical debates about morality vs. ambition a touch overindulgent; a tighter edit could’ve kept the tension from sagging. Roisin Rankin’s performance is masterclass-level. Her Kit is all jagged edges and swallowed pride, while the Olympians’ voices drip with the kind of smugness that makes you want to throw your headphones across the room. The production design is equally sharp—subtle ambient sounds (a distant church bell, the scrape of a chair) ground the story in place without distracting. My one critique? The pacing in the final act feels rushed, as if Hennigan suddenly remembered she’d promised a thriller and jammed the resolution into 30 frantic minutes. Still, that hardly dulls the impact. This isn’t just a mystery; it’s a gut-punch about the stories we tell ourselves to justify the indefensible. If you like your suspense with a side of existential dread, check in—but don’t expect to leave unchanged.