Hokey pokey

February, 1929. The Regent Hotel in Birmingham is a place of deception and glamour. Behind its six-storeyed façade, guests sip absinthe cocktails on velvet banquettes, while the staff navigate the hotel's labyrinthine 'below stairs' to ensure the finest service is always at hand. In the early evening, psychoanalyst Nora Dickinson checks in under a false name. It's unlike Nora to deceive - her aversion to lying borders on the pathological - but she's travelling with an agenda. Having shadowed the famous opera singer, Berenice Oxbow, from Zurich, she's determined not to lose sight of her now. But when a terrible snow storm isolates the hotel - and its guests - from the outside world, reality appears to shift. Nora's grip loosens, and the nightmares she's worked hard to control begin to bare their teeth. Kate Mascarenhas's latest novel offers her readers a horrifying ride through murder, madness and the darkest recesses of the mind. 'A delicious piece of art deco Gothic' Natalie Marlow 'Dark, complex and beautifully plotted' Rebecca Netley 'Immersive, unique... with a dark supernatural core' Essie Fox 'An atmospheric, claustrophobic novel... mesmerising' Elizabeth Lee