Book info

• Title The Hotel Avocado
• Author Bob Mortimer
• Year 2024
• Genre Mystery

WARNING - this book includes: heavy crimes, car journeys, dreadfulness, large fruits, romance, planning applications, and a lot of pie. Gary Thorn is struggling with a big decision. Should he stay in London, wallowing in the safety of his legal job in Peckham and eating pies with his next door neighbour, Grace and her dog Lassoo, or should he move to Brighton, where his girlfriend Emily is about to open The Hotel Avocado? Either way, he’d be letting someone down. But sinister forces are gathering in a cloud of launderette scented-vape smoke, and the arrival of the mysterious Mr Sequence puts Gary in an even worse predicament: soon he might be dead. All Gary wants is a happy life. But he also wants to be alive to enjoy it...

Thoughts

I wasn’t expecting to like the first book in this series by Bob Mortimer, so that was a pleasant surprise and the fact there was a follow up even more so. It felt like the story was pretty much done but it did flow through into this sequel well enough. I don’t think it was quite as strong as the original, but there are more characters to hear from and get to know, and another conspiracy, loosely following the first, to unravel. Fun but not quite 100% like the original satsuma.

Rating: 4 / 5