Grand Hotel Europa

"One can’t help being impressed by how many narrative balls Pfeijffer keeps in the air. The novel combines a comedy of manners with travel journalism, political and cultural commentary, and reflections on European identity. Oh, plus an art-heist mystery (centering on the final days and paintings of Caravaggio). And that love story. Pfeijffer’s prose, bravely translated by Michele Hutchison, is as multifarious as the novel itself (......) The novel wantonly mingles the erotic and the esoteric, the hilarious and the hectoring, the antic and the academic. (...) Not everything works, but in the end, Grand Hotel Europa is like its garrulous narrator, whose flaws and excesses you readily forgive because you enjoy his company." - Rand Richards Cooper, The New York Times Book Review