Soon after the Beaumont is sold, its new owner is found dead in Suite 912When crushing debts force the proprietor of the world-famous Beaumont Hotel to offload his prized possession to the ruthless tycoon J. W. Sassoon, hotel manager Pierre Chambrun and his staff brace for change. But the threat isn't J.W., it's his son, Johnny-baby—a cigar-puffing playboy whose bright ideas for modernizing one of Manhattan's most elegant destinations amount to nothing more than sleaze. When he suggests that the Spartan Bar's cigarette girls go topless, Chambrun quits, leaving the hapless wannabe to fend for himself.  Chambrun retires to his penthouse to write his memoirs, waiting for the inevitable crisis to force his return. It comes in the form of a dead body, Johnny-baby's father, who is found in Suite 912 with a tap on his phone and a call girl's underwear on the floor. To save his hotel, Chambrun is happy to come out of retirement—and clean up Johnny-baby's mess.

(The Pierre Chambrun Mysteries, 19)A group of thugs storms the Beaumont Hotel, and only Pierre Chambrun can stop the chaos.  There has been trouble in Central Park. Free concerts given on the great lawn have been ending in upheaval as gangs of toughs maraud through the crowd with bats, chains, and knives—taking what they want and crushing those who stand in their way. During a performance by red-hot diva Donna Ward, the park is peaceful. But afterward, the horde descends on the Beaumont Hotel, smashing the bar and storming the elevators in search of beautiful things to steal or destroy.  In the chaos, someone takes three shots at Victoria Haven, the onetime beauty queen who has, for decades, occupied the penthouse. After the throng is expelled from the premises, manager Pierre Chambrun tries to discover who would want to kill this harmless old glamour girl. But his investigation is about to be upended—for the riot is only the beginning of his trouble.

When an army of freedom fighters takes the entire Beaumont hostage, Chambrun contemplates a commando attackPierre Chambrun, the elegant manager of the Beaumont Hotel, gets the call just after breakfast: The fifteenth floor has been seized. Armed with guns, grenades, and plastic explosives, a gang of guerrillas has taken the daughters of the British ambassador hostage, and they are ready to kill to make themselves heard. For these men are combatants, veterans of the war in Vietnam who have come to demand justice for South Vietnamese political prisoners, as well as the release of American soldiers accused of massacring civilians and court martials for the generals who started the war in the first place. Their demands are impossible, but their firepower cannot be ignored.  As Chambrun scrambles to rescue his hotel, he does everything he can to stall the madmen, including sending them all the room service they can eat. But in just a few days, trigger fingers will start to itch, and...

From Publishers WeeklyMurder and mayhem come once again to New York's Hotel Beaumont in the 21st mystery featuring hotel manager Pierre Chambrun. Popular jazz musician Toby March disappears after performing at the Beaumont's Blue Lagoon, with his room in the hotel left wrecked and bloody. Finding March is made more complicated because no one knows what he looks like; he has never been seen without a mask since he was disfigured in an accident several years before. His manager, Frank Pasqua, is also missing; the body of a well-dressed stranger is found in the basement of the hotel; and Chambrun himself is shot and gravely wounded. The body turns out to be that of a London policeman who is investigating rumors tying March, an Englishman, to the kidnapping of 11 English teenagers by terrorists seeking the release of Iranian prisoners; the corpse of one girl, raped and beaten, has already been returned to her parents. Still recovering from his wounds, Chambrun must find March and the children and defuse a threat to blow up the Beaumont before the situation can be resolved. MWA Grandmaster Pentecosts indulges in some rather formulaic writing here; while some boilerplate is necessary in most series to set the scene for new readers, in this case it has become tiresome. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Against its manager's wishes, the Beaumont Hotel shelters a killerWhen the Chinese Revolution exploded, General Chang was one of the most vicious military leaders, committing atrocities so savage that even his comrades in the Red Army feared him. Decades later, the aging killer has become a respected diplomat, and is on his way to New York for a United Nations summit. Although the State Department doesn't like it, Chang's status demands the finest treatment. And in New York City, there is no place finer than the Beaumont Hotel.Providing hospitality for the unhinged general falls to Pierre Chambrun, the Beaumont's unflappable manager. Finding enough rooms for the diplomatic party is a headache, but the more pressing challenge is protecting Chang from Neil Drury, a onetime character actor whose parents were tortured to death by the general. Drury has a new face, a false identity, and possibly a room in the hotel. Chang could have no better bodyguard than Chambrun, for...

At New York's stateliest hotel, the manager has a revolution on his handsWhen the leading lights of international society come to New York, no place will do but the Beaumont Hotel. And inside the famous halls of this Manhattan landmark, manager Pierre Chambrun holds every key. Suave, charming, and unflappable, he is as comfortable with the kitchen staff as with the hotel's most luminous guests. And now he has a murder to solve.For longer than anyone can remember, white-haired gentleman Murray Cardew has lived in the Beaumont, his presence lending the debonair class of a bygone era. But when the dapper old fellow is found murdered in his room, suspicion falls on Digger Sullivan, a rakish playboy who was recently caught trying to rob his ex-lover's suite. And as Chambrun and his press man, the indefatigable Mark Haskell, investigate Sullivan's past, they find a tangled conspiracy of murder and intrigue with roots in one of the deadliest conflicts the African continent has...

A gang of jet-setting slanderers cause havoc at the stately Beaumont HotelUnder the stern eye of manager Pierre Chambrun, life at the Beaumont runs with the efficiency of a Swiss watch. So reliable is the service at New York's finest hotel that guests could set their timepieces to the movements of its bellhops. But a wrench is about to be thrown into this perfect mechanism—a redhead named Doris Standing.Standing is queen of the jet set, that army of playboys and party girls who tour the world in search of a good time. Lately, she and her gang have found a vicious kind of fun, exposing the misdeeds—real or imagined—of the rich and powerful. When this cruel young woman checks in to the Beaumont, Chambrun and his press man, Mark Haskell, take note. Because where Standing touches down, good men will be destroyed.

A spy marked for death finds a corpse in his hotel roomGeorge Lovelace has spent more than two decades in the shadows. Shielded by an array of forged passports, he has battled Nazis, Communists, and anyone else who might harm the United States. He has enemies on every continent, and one is planning to kill him. When a series of threats convinces the aging spy that he is about to be retired permanently, Lovelace comes to the Beaumont hotel. If he must die, he prefers to do it in style.The manager of this most exclusive establishment is his old friend Pierre Chambrun, a former resistance fighter who promises to protect him with the full resources of the hotel. But when an unknown guest is found murdered in Lovelace's room, it becomes apparent that the assassin has already penetrated the Beaumont's walls. Someone wants Lovelace dead, and only the world's greatest hotel manager can save him.

The night before an interview with a terrorist, a reporter is killed at the Beaumont HotelFor a madman with an itch to kill someone famous, there could be no better venue than the Beaumont Hotel—Manhattan's headquarters for the international elite. The omniscient manager Pierre Chambrun oversees the landmark, with the help of his press man, Mark Haskell. When the rich and famous arrive, Chambrun and Haskell can help them hide from the limelight or bask in it. But it's difficult to keep a low profile when death comes to call.Geoffrey Hammond is one of the world's most respected—and loathed—television journalists. A fearless questioner of presidents and kings, he is in New York preparing an interview with an infamous Middle Eastern terrorist. But when the room service waiter comes to collect his breakfast tray in the morning, the journalist has been strangled. It will take all Chambrun's powers to solve this mystery—especially since the future of the...