Hotel Lucky Seven is the latest book in Kotaro Isaka's "Assassins" series. These books are smart,clever and quirky and have become firm favourites of mine, it has to be said though that the movie rendition of "Bullet Train" is truly awful and best avoided.

Series favourite Nanao, a man who if he didn't have bad luck would have no luck at all,is once again given a simple errand to do,what could possibly go wrong? This is Nanao we're talking about so what should be a simple parcel drop at a swanky Tokyo Hotel turns into a life or death situation for him and others,with teams of assassins with different agendas roaming the rooms and corridors with a mounting body-count while other guests obliviously go about their business.

This is great fun,all of the assassins are very unique characters and fans of Tarantino's classic Kill Bill movies will love this whole series, if he'd made the movie version of Bullet Train he would have done a much better job.

Great characters,a clever and involving plot and some very unique weaponry ,a very entertaining read.

Hotel Lucky Seven is another assassin thriller from Kotaro Isaka featuring a web of assassins in Tokyo whose intersections cause a mess of violence, death, and ridiculousness. Nanao, the unlucky assassin known as Ladybird from Bullet Train, has a job to deliver a birthday present to a room in a hotel, an apparently easy job until a man ends up dead and Nanao discovers he isn't the only professional in the hotel that day. When he meets Kamino, a woman with a perfect memory who seems to be the focus of these professionals, Nanao is drawn into far more than he expected.

Given that Nanao is one of the main characters, you can guess that this book is very much a follow-up to Bullet Train, even though there are other Isaka books in the same world featuring some of the same characters. Hotel Lucky Seven takes the Bullet Train mould of a single location and far too many assassins, rather than the more wide-ranging (and less comic) The Mantis, and this works very effectively as a fun journey around scheming and mishaps, with plenty of ridiculous deaths. There's some fascinating character relationships in this one, and some further models for crime duos along similar lines to the citrus-themed pair from Bullet Train.

If you liked Bullet Train, Hotel Lucky Seven is another book in the same vein, with plenty of mishaps, gruesome deaths, and weirdly specifically skilled assassins. It's ideal for people, like me, who love dark comedy crime films. The translation has a good balance of making sure Japanese-culture-specific elements are clear, whilst not spelling everything out or removing things that give the book its setting and context (and the author's note at the end about yuzu pepper cheesecake is a funny touch).

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage for the ARC

Crazy fun! A hotel full of assassins all trying to murder each other, what could possibly go wrong? The book had a great, subtle humor which I loved. I mean an assassin named Blanket? It was fast-paced and kept me guessing all the time. It was refreshingly unpredictable and unique. I'll definitely read more from the author

What a fab book. This is the first novel by this author that I have read but will not be the last

I was hooked and was kept guessing righ to the end

Thank you for the opportunity to review

I love this author's crazy books about Japanese assassins. This one has Ladybug again, the unlucky guy from Bullet Train. He has a simple task again, just to deliver something to someone. What could go wrong? It's Ladybug, so pretty much everything can go wrong. One of my favorite things about these stories is the unpredictability, and I love the fun nicknames he gives the assassins. Blanket and Pillow hilariously work at the hotel and use sheets to capture their victims. We also get to see Maria again. Thanks so much to NetGalley for letting me read this.

Nanao only has to deliver a package to a hotel room at an exclusive Tokyo hotel. No problem, obviously. Except this is the same Nanao who only had to handle a briefcase for a stop on a certain bullet train that ended up in death, mayhem and destruction in the book of the same title (and later turned into the far inferior Hollywood movie of the same name). Yes, its a sequel of sort - but don't worry about it if you haven't read Bullet Train. All you need to know is we're back in the company of the self described 'unluckiest assassin in the world’ and things will get messy.
I'm a big fan of Kotaro Isaka's work. This one is a full tilt ride with assassins on every floor tripping over each other on purpose or by accident - if the author's last book The Mantis had some poignancy and social commentary to it this one's more 'fun' (if you like your fun black humoured and occasionally violent). The plot may at first appear to be video game levels of simplicity with wave after wave of attack but it's deceptive - there are a couple of narratives unfolding and they come together in unforeseen ways which are satisfying by the end of the book.
The translations for Isaka's work are always well done, and this is no exception. Just the right side of getting the cultural elements inherent in his work right, but not too alienating for those not familiar with Japanese literature or society.
Great fun.

I really enjoyed this book! It was so much fun having multiple different assassins in the same hotel that are trying to kill each other, all with completely different assassination techniques. The only issue I had was keeping track of all the characters with there being so many. However, this is without a doubt my favourite book that I've read by this author!

A fun escapade where several assassins end up in the same hotel and try to kill each other. This was so entertaining, suspenseful and very funny, I was kept thoroughly entertained throughout. Blanket and Pillow, two seemingly harmless housekeepers, The Six - a team of deadly blow dart assassins, a politician and the poor victim, a woman who happened to have an excellent memory.

Well worth a read.