Ghost Hotel is book two in Saskatoon writer Arthur Slade’s “Canadian Chills” series, a series which lives up to its name, with Canadian settings and spine-tingling, mysterious plots. Book one, Return of the Grudstone Ghosts, had a Moose Jaw setting, a ten-year-old detective named Daphne, and a chilling tale of tiny ghosts and a horrible villain. Ghost Hotel takes place in the city of Saskatoon with a different pair of young detectives, and a different villain, but an equally mysterious ghost.
The story begins when Walter Biggar Bronson (known to his friends as Wart, because of his habit of worrying) and his best friend, Cindy, meet a sad-looking young boy late one afternoon in their school. The pair soon realizes that the boy is a ghost, and he seems to want them to follow him. Since Walter and Cindy are partners in a “Ghost Detective and Time Travel Agency,” they immediately follow his lead.the boy takes them down the street to the Delta Bessborough Hotel, a castle-like hotel in downtown Saskatoon, known to the locals as “the Bess.”
While using the elevator to follow the boy, Wart and Cindy mysteriously time-travle back to February 13th, 1936, soon after the hotel officially opened. There they meet Baron Roderick Gilgamesh, an illusionist and ventriloquist, who gives them tickets to attend his show. Although the young sleuths soon find their way back to the present, they are determined to investigate the mysterious situation further in an attempt to help the sorrowful child.
By studying school records and archival material at the library, Wart learns that the young ghost is six-year-old Archibald (Archie) Tortle, who had died in February, 1936, following an accident in which he and his parents went through the ice on the South Saskatchewan River. The Tortle family had been staying in the Bess at the time, and was scheduled to attend a performance at Gilgamesh. That evening Wart and Cindy again follow Archie to the hotel and are transported back to 1936, but this time the adventure takes some dangerous turns. Gilgamesh turns nasty, the ventriloquist’s dummy talks on its own, and worst of all, a horrible “monkey monster” named Eih Cra chases Wart, Cindy and Archie around the hotel.
Although Ghost Hotel is basically a “chills and thrills” type of tale, the author has taken care to create unique and memorable characters and setting. Children who enjoy fantasy and frights will lap this story up. I enjoyed the descriptions of Saskatoon’s historic Bessborough Hotel, and other touches of local colour such as a “Canadian Tire sized building.”
