Death Hotels

Every hotel promises safety. A locked door. A comfortable bed. A night without fear. But some hotels have become the scenes of tragedies the world has never forgotten.

Behind grand entrances, elegant ballrooms and ordinary guest-room doors lie extraordinary stories of catastrophe, murder, survival and mystery.

In Death Hotels, Sheldon Luke takes readers inside some of the most infamous hotels in history, uncovering the real events that transformed places of hospitality into scenes of disaster.

Discover the devastating 1946 Winecoff Hotel fire in Atlanta, where 119 people died in a building advertised as fireproof. Revisit the catastrophic MGM Grand fire in Las Vegas, the collapse of Singapores Hotel New World, and the deadly New Years Eve arson at Puerto Ricos Dupont Plaza.

Explore the Brighton hotel bombing, the destruction at Jerusalems King David Hotel, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel, and the extraordinary courage displayed during the terrorist attacks on Mumbais Taj Mahal Palace.

Enter the darker histories of the Cecil Hotel, the Hotel Chelsea and the Hotel del Coronado, where real deaths have become entangled with speculation, enduring mysteries and ghostly legends.

Drawing on historical investigations, court records, contemporary journalism and documented testimony, Death Hotels separates established fact from folklore while remembering the people whose lives were changed forever.

Twelve meticulously researched chapters. Real places. Documented tragedies. Remarkable stories of human survival.

Because behind every hotel door is a history.

And some histories never check out.