Once I got past the fact that the story has a rather scattered, "a banker cum aspiring author writing a story about writing a story to make sense of it all" type of story, this one wasn't all that bad of a story. Not fantastic by any means, but not a stinker, either. Rennison is a refugee from our world in search of the exotic and jumps at the opportunity to leave Montreal to start up a 'branch' office in Pigeon Cay. He skirts the line of a half respectable "I have morals" kind of guy with a sleazy/corruptible banker that has no problem with knowingly transacting business with drug dealers and the like. Okay, I admit he is low guy on the totem pole and it is really his superiors that make a lot of the less than reputable decisions for the bank, but still, this book really portrays a view of the underbelly of the Caribbean, circa 1970s (I am guessing) given the use of radiophone (no landlines) and cassette tapes as opposed to DVDs as the musical storage and retrieval system in use by residents and visitors to the island. Pigeon Cay isn't a ritzy honeymoon/vacation getaway of choice... it is a bit of an outback as the following description of the Yacht Club will convey:

"Another thing: I was expecting the Yacht Club to be wide verandas and faithful servants, stewards in white jackets bringing round the gin on silver trays while the gentlemen played cards and smoked fat cigars. Somerset Maugham country. Instead, you bring your own bottle in a paper bag. The convening committee provided the mix, ice cubes, plastic tumblers and a sullen black man at a folding table to set them up. That was on Saturday nights; most other days the place was locked and shuttered. The Club was nothing more than a wooden hit with a covered stone patio at the side. An overgrown trellis protected members from the gaze of curious passersby. The bar in the main room had once been a storage cupboard. Across the road, in a hut identical but for the faded paint and whiff of urine, lived a large family of ragged Haitians, refugees who one night not long ago had stumbled from the sea."

What I loved about this book is that Rennison, an outsider by all accounts over the course of three years spent on the island, sees the island, its inhabitants and its legal - and predominantly illegal - trade activities without any rose tinted glasses. An observer who knows when to speak up and when to stay 'mum'. The island of Robinson's story is a place that was British settled and then left damaged; an island of expats who think they have found paradise and pretty much turn a blind eye to what occurs around them; an island of locals who think they were once an outpost of the British empire and are now nothing more than an outpost of the American empire; and an island of Haitians, Cubans and other illegal immigrants who flow in and out of the island almost as frequently as the tides. What is interesting is Robinson - through Rennison - tells the tale of the demise of a Bahamian outpost where even the drug trade slows down to a trickle.

... Oh, and as for the Hotel Paradiso of the title, it is as run down and corrupt as Pigeon Cay, with secrets to disclose, and an apt title for this book. ( )