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I found myself thinking, 'Who are these people who show up at work every morning to perpetuate a massive crime?'" Īs with Station Eleven (2014), Mandel is inspired by the "invisible world" of shipping and the "ghost fleet" of freighters off the shore of Malaysia after the global financial crisis in 2008. The thing that fascinated me the most was the staff involved. It's not about Madoff - or Madoff's family or Madoff's actual staff - but the crime is the same. Mandel said, "I do want to be clear about this book: it's not about any real people. Jonathan Alkaitis' Ponzi scheme is based on the crimes of Bernie Madoff. His co-investigator instructs him to cover up possibly incriminating evidence from an interview. Leon Prevant, who lost his life savings investing with Alkaitis, is sent to help investigate. Her onboard boyfriend is suspected of killing her.

She disappears from the ship in the midst of a storm. Refusing to confront him, she takes a job as a cook on a shipping freighter. He is often haunted by the people he defrauded.Īfter the collapse of the scheme, Vincent discovers that Paul has taken old videotapes of hers as the basis for musical compositions. Alkaitis is sentenced to 170 years in prison, where he dreams of a "counter-life" in which he escaped to a hotel in Dubai. One flees the country, another writes an elaborate confession. His complicit staff reacts in different ways to their impending demise. Her life becomes one of extreme wealth and accommodating her partner.Īlkaitis is arrested and it is revealed that his investment success is a Ponzi scheme. Vincent, who is working the bar, soon enters into a relationship with Alkaitis and moves into his house in Connecticut. The graffiti would appear to be intended for Jonathan Alkaitis, a wealthy investor who owns the hotel. Paul is immediately suspected and soon fired. Graffiti is discovered written on a window in the lobby with an acid marker, saying, "Why don't you swallow broken glass". Paul flees to the apartment of his half-sister Vincent.įive years later, Paul and Vincent work at a hotel on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island in the fictional Caiette, which is based on the real hamlet Quatsino.

At a nightclub, he gives some tablets to some people he is hoping to befriend and one of them dies shortly after. Paul is a lonely student at the University of Toronto. It follows the aftermath of a disturbing graffiti incident at a hotel on Vancouver Island and the collapse of an international Ponzi scheme. It is Mandel's fifth novel, and the first since winning the Arthur C. The Glass Hotel is a 2020 novel by Canadian writer Emily St.