Title: Higgins Hotel
Author: Carla Coffman
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1524613606
Pages: 219
Genre: Fiction / Crime / Mystery
Reviewed by: Jake Bishop
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What’s normal and what isn’t? The answers to those questions are more often than not dependent upon locale, circumstances, and acceptable modes of behavior. All of which come into play in Carla Coffman’s novel, Higgins Hotel. The locale is West Virginia. The circumstances revolve around shady dealings, bed hopping, mayhem and murder. As far as what modes of behavior are deemed acceptable, that’s definitely different from character to character.

Jack owns the Higgins Hotel as well as a gymnasium nearby. He’s a rough-around-theedges sort who is not immune to breaking a few laws when it proves profitable. His wife, Booboo, is a tough-as-nails type who has little patience with Jack’s proclivities for philandering and consorting with known miscreants. Blossom lives in a trailer, works for Jack, gets promoted while Booboo is away, and then loses her job upon Booboo’s return—suspicions of hanky-panky at the forefront of her dismissal. Cindy is a single mother and real estate agent who lives in the same trailer park as Blossom. They are friends and help each other out whenever they can. Cindy is dating Chuck, a poor soul with more troubles ahead of him than behind him. Blossom, being recently unemployed, is seriously considering leaving town and going to Florida to take a job at a nudist resort. So, having set this stage, you can decide for yourself the answer to the question posed initially—what’s normal and what isn’t.

Of course, to answer that question you’ll also need to be aware of a few other things, such as one of the characters suffering from worsening hallucinations, a bomb going off in the local bank, not just one murder but two, plus a lot of real estate being sold.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, there’s a lot of strangeness going on with the people who populate the pages of this novel. Mostly, they’re good folk trying to get by as best they can while beset by all manner of ill fortune life can throw at them—not to mention the trouble brought about by their own miscalculations and/or stunningly bad judgment. Oh, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one other interesting character, Danny, a fascinating fellow who wears lipstick and doubles as a concierge and part-time maintenance worker.

Coffman tells her tale with pedal-to-the-medal pace. Sentences and paragraphs, like chapters, are short and rapid fire. Her dialogue is crisp and sounds like real people talking, not simply characters using conversation to divulge plot points. Her chronicle is a fun and easy read that feels a bit like a cozy Elmore Leonard yarn. If you’re into wacky goings-on with an empathetic touch, you might enjoy checking into the Higgins Hotel.