The elegant calm of New York's top luxury hotel is shattered when the mysterious Colonel Coriander arrives. Wearing a fright wig and mask, the one-armed terromonger has planted bombs throughout the building and is holding two small girls hostage. And he's always once crucial step ahead of Hotel Beaumont's legendary manager, Pierre Chambrun. Coriander's outrageous demands are quite impossible to meet. Chambrun's only chance is to outwit the very clever Colonel at his own game--in the countdown to terror.