An exciting finale to Elizabeth Cooke’s small hotel series about the Hotel Marcel in Paris is presented in this, the fourth book, “A Tale of Two Hotels.” Following “There’s a Small Hotel,” Secrets of a Small Hotel,” and “The Hotel Next Door,”

 “A Tale of Two Hotels” involves a duel between two hostelries, one simple and diminutive, the other, large and grandiose, side by side on a Parisian avenue. Trouble is compounded when a sheikh’s beautiful daughter sheds her burka.  All manner of mischief ensues. Other passions, adultery, a wedding, even attempted arson,  take place in the City of Light in the month of May, much to the fascination of the narrator, an American widow in her 60s.