New Releases by Hugh Pentecost

As manager of New York City''s finest luxury hotel The Beaumont, Pierre Chambrun is well acquainted with unreasonable requests from its patrons. When one of the rich rooftop suite owners demands the impossible for his annual birthday bash, Chambrun is unflustered; of course he can have exotic foods and flora flown in from all corners of the globe! No problem procuring the chorus of the Metropolitan Opera to sing "Happy Birthday!" No matter that birthday boy is the obnoxious and well-hated Aubrey Moon—a man who loves nothing better than destroying the lives of those who annoy him. Pierre is more than equal to the task. But when a high-society call girl commits suicide in one of the Beaumont''s suites, Pierre learns she''d been under pressure to murder Moon. He also discovers that there is a "Moon Club" made up of people with good reasons to wish the man dead. When an anonymous big spender offers $10,000 to any club member able to exterminate the menace, Chambrun works with his chief of security and the NYPD to catch the mastermind before the plot—and Moon—are executed.

From the creative mind of Hugh Pentecost comes a terrifying and prophetic novel that potentially influenced the Chowchilla kidnapping in 1976. The Day the Children Vanished is not for the faint of heart, as readers are taken down the rabbit hole of the mysterious disappearance of nine children, the school bus they rode on, and its driver. On a bright, clear winter afternoon, nine children in the town of Clayton disappeared from the face of the earth on their commute to the Regional School of Lakeview. Missing with the children are the bus in which they traveled and its driver…u200b They vanished completely. So mysteriously so that some distraught citizen of Clayton suggest it was as if they’d been sucked up into outer space by a monstrous interplanetary vacuum cleaner. Dive into the mysterious, twisted mind of the winner of the Grand Master Award from Mystery Writers of America and see for yourself just how the nine children of Clayton disappeared that winter. One of Hugh Pentecost’s most tantalizing stories, Pentecost has “a certain hand and a crafty mind” (The New Yorker).

In the pool of the Beaumont Hotel, a teenager is found murdered and faceless Manhattan’s charitable circles know no finer place for a fundraiser than the stately Beaumont Hotel, whose brilliant manager Pierre Chambrun will do whatever it takes to make Good Samaritans feel at home. This means that after popular singer Stan Nelson has completed his annual twenty-four-hour telethon for cancer research, Chambrun is loath to wake the crooner from his well-earned sleep. But there has been a murder in the hotel’s pool, and that means no good deed will go unpunished. A young man is found floating in the water, his face a bloody mess, his pockets empty of everything but a telethon pledge card bearing Stan’s autograph. The star swears he doesn’t recognize the corpse, but as Chambrun and his team dig into the secrets behind the charity, they discover a tangled plot involving sin and religion, and the deadly consequences that can come from doing good.

DIVDIVA lost boy draws Pierre Chambrun into an international conspiracy/divDIVGuy Willis knows that if he is ever in trouble at the Beaumont Hotel, he can trust Pierre Chambrun. The manager of this world-famous Manhattan institution, Chambrun owes his life to young Guy’s father—an Air Force intelligence operative who once rescued the unflappable Frenchman from a gang of terrorists. When Guy’s parents disappear during a stay at the Beaumont, a priest turns up and approaches the boy, claiming to be an old family friend sent to take care of him. Guy doesn’t trust the phony padre—or the pistol in his shoulder holster—one bit, and screams for Chambrun to help./divDIV /divDIVChambrun dispatches the ersatz priest, but finding Guy’s parents will be more than a matter of visiting the lost and found. Major Willis has been kidnapped, and if he is not recovered, it will be more than just a mishap for the hotel—it will be a catastrophe for all of the United States./div/div

DIVDIVWhen an army of freedom fighters takes the entire Beaumont hostage, Chambrun contemplates a commando attack/divDIVPierre 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. /divDIV /divDIVAs 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 the world-famous Beaumont Hotel may be blown sky high./div /div

DIVDIVSoon after the Beaumont is sold, its new owner is found dead in Suite 912/divDIVWhen 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. /divDIV /divDIVChambrun 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./div /div

DIVAs X-rated stars descend on the Beaumont Hotel, someone takes a shot at its owner/divDIV Terrified of flying, Beaumont Hotel owner George Battle hasn’t seen America in seventeen years, instead spending his days on the Riviera, counting his money. But pressing business calls him back to the United States: a seven million dollar investment in the latest epic directed by Maxwell Zorn, king of highbrow celluloid smut. It’s the kind of motion picture that even an old man will want to oversee personally./divDIV /divDIVAs Zorn’s outlandish entourage swarms the illustrious hotel, Battle takes residence in the penthouse suite of his infallible manager, Pierre Chambrun. On his first night there, a bullet splinters the headboard just inches from his face. Was the shot meant for him or Chambrun? The Beaumont’s top brass must tread lightly. Die, and the Beaumont dies with them—a blow from which the jet-set will never recover. /div

DIVAgainst its manager’s wishes, the Beaumont Hotel shelters a killer/divDIV When 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./divDIV /divDIVProviding 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 within the Beaumont’s walls, the manager is more powerful than Red China itself./div

DIVThe night before an interview with a terrorist, a reporter is killed at the Beaumont Hotel /divDIV For 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./divDIV /divDIVGeoffrey 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 Middle East is at stake. /div

DIVIt’s fashion week at the Beaumont, and Chambrun must investigate a haute couture killing/divDIV Barrel-chested and twinkle-eyed, Nikos Karados is one of the jet-set’s most charming figures. A Greek shipping magnate with a philanthropic bent, Karados has a Midas touch that turns charities into gold. For the sake of cancer research, he comes to New York to stage a fashion show at the stately Beaumont Hotel. Beaumont press agent Mark Haskell is admiring the models when he sees Karados collapse and perish from an apparent heart attack. Inspecting the body, the house doctor discovers that Karados’s medication has been replaced by placebos./divDIV /divDIVTo avoid a high-fashion panic, Beaumont manager Pierre Chambrun has Haskell quietly investigate the murder. Among the models, designers, and photographers lurks a killer, and Chambrun and Haskell will see to it that this unscrupulous fashionista spends next season wearing pinstripes./div

DIVWhen its manager vanishes, the Beaumont Hotel spins towards disaster/divDIV For decades, Pierre Chambrun has maintained the enormous mechanism that is the Beaumont Hotel. He breakfasts in his office at nine, and spends his days and nights ensuring that the various problems that inevitably occur in a large hotel do not disrupt its overall operation. But one morning, the suave old hotelier does not appear for breakfast. Panic sets quickly once it is clear that Pierre Chambrun is missing, and his staff must manage without him. The first crisis comes before lunch: A socialite has been murdered in her suite. /divDIV /divDIVInvestigating the killing falls to Chambrun’s security chief, his secretary, and Mark Haskell, his indefatigable press man. Together they must find the assassin and search for Chambrun, all the while trying to keep the Beaumont on the rails. For whether their boss is dead or alive, nothing must bother the guests. /div

DIVAt New York’s stateliest hotel, the manager has a revolution on his hands/divDIV When 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./divDIV /divDIVFor 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 ever seen./div

DIVA Nazi’s widow comes to the Beaumont Hotel with death in her entourage/divDIV As befits the manager of New York’s finest hotel, Pierre Chambrun has certain standards for his guests at the Beaumont. Were it not for the pleading of the hotel’s owner, no amount of money could persuade him to allow the Baroness Charmian Zetterstrom a room. She is the stunning young widow of a Nazi war criminal; her husband was an infamous sadist who escaped before the fall of the Reich to live out the rest of his days in hedonistic isolation on a Mediterranean isle. Off the island for the first time since the war, the baroness comes to New York with an entourage of misfits, and mayhem follows./divDIV /divDIVThe first victim is the baroness’s dog, which is savagely murdered by an unknown hand. The next to die will be human, forcing Chambrun to identify the killer, or risk having his hotel destroyed by the vindictive ghosts of the fallen Reich./div

DIVA spy marked for death finds a corpse in his hotel room/divDIV George 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. /divDIV /divDIVThe 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./div

DIVA prank outside the Beaumont Hotel goes haywire, and an assassin kills the wrong man /divDIV Political fundraisers can be cynical and coarse when they’re among their own kind, and Pierre Chambrun, manager of the elegant Beaumont Hotel, prefers not to let them through his doors. But when his friend Douglas Maxwell, a hard-nosed senatorial candidate, asks to host a thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner in the Beaumont’s famous ballroom, Chambrun cannot refuse. The fundraiser has just begun when bad taste rears its ugly head, and Maxwell steps out of his limousine smiling, waving, and wearing no pants. The crowd roars with laughter until the pantsless man falls to his knees, shot dead. /divDIV /divDIVLess than half an hour later, Maxwell appears in Chambrun’s office, very much alive. The dead man was his cousin, a lookalike who came to New York to play a prank, and caught a bullet in return. Chambrun must find the gunman to save his friend and spare the Beaumont a second killing—because murder is the ultimate faux pas. /div

This volume includes "Secret Corridors," by Hugh Pentecost ("A Lieut. Luke Bradley Case") and "Week-End to Kill," by Frederick Nebel.

Uncle George is roused early one morning by his nephew Joey who has just witnessed the death of a local schoolteacher. An autopsy reveals that death occurred from a ruptured pouch of heroin concealed in the stomach. And from there comes the stunning inference that the dead man was a drug courier.

The 14 Dilemma by Hugh Pentecost released on Feb 22, 1990 is available now for purchase.

Julian Quist, whose girl friend is among 300 people being held hostage by a terrorist army, must find the weak spot in the terrorists' armor and effect a rescue.