![]() So why didn’t it work for me? Probably a few reasons, and mostly to do with reader preference.ġ) Mainly, I found the whole premise extremely unbelievable, from the strange way that people suddenly start dying, to the investigative efforts of a British policewoman on leave for PTSD (who has absolutely no jurisdiction in Switzerland), to the reveal of the final culprit and the motives of the murder spree. With a shady history, the building itself seems to exude an air of menace and danger that made for a wonderful backdrop. Pearse brings her setting to life with vivid descriptions of the old TB sanatorium and its eerie presence despite having been remodelled into a fancy resort. And when a massive blizzard cuts off the hotel from civilisation, and people start dying, the stage is set for a tense closed door mystery. An old sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps that has been converted into a fancy but sinister hotel – it doesn’t get much better than this. Let’s start with the things I did enjoy, and the setting is definitely a treat. ![]() Given the atmospheric, claustrophobic setting in the Swiss Alps during a blizzard I expected to like this book much more than I did – I wonder what went wrong here? And she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.Įlin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. But Elin's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.Īrriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge-there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.Īn imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. Half hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Today the complex is called the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center, named after Senators Philip Hart, Robert Dole, and Daniel Inouye, who were all patients of Percy Jones Hospital during World War II.You won't want to leave.until you can't. ![]() The buildings were acquired by the US Army in 1942 and they became the Percy Jones Hospital, which was heavily used during the World War II years and later during the Korean War.Īfter the end of the Korean War, the hospital closed and since 1954 the buildings have been used as government offices. In 1928, on the peak of the postwar US prosperity, a new fifteen-story towering building at the corner of Champion Street was erected. But the Great Depression struck very soon and in the 1930s, the Sanitarium closed. The old building burned down in 1902 and was rebuilt as a new large Italian Renaissance Revival-style building facing Washington Avenue. Kellogg Discovery Center in the Historic Adventist Village in Battle Creek. Many of Kellogg’s therapy machines, which he invented and then used in the Sanitarium, are on display in the nearby Dr. ![]() He took the word “sanatorium” (a health rehab for injured soldiers), changed two letters, and got the Battle Creek “Sanitarium.” John Harvey Kellogg-the future inventor of cornflakes-was a medical director of the Institute when he decided to expand it and even invented a new word to rename the place. In 1866, the Church established the Western Health Reform Institute, a kind of health resort promoting temperance, a vegetarian diet, and the importance of exercise. Two imposing buildings in the center of Battle Creek went through waves of transformation, from a health resort to a military hospital to now government offices.īattle Creek was the birthplace of the formal Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |