Magical Mystery Tour

There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned mystery to spice things up. Mysteries worked for Arthur Conan Doyle, who created the timeless character of Sherlock Homes. They also worked pretty well for the publishing houses that created Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys several decades later. They were probably the authors Barbara Lombardo had in mind when she wrote her latest masterpiece, entitled “Eatery mystery coming to the Hampton Inn.”

For those who don’t know Lombardo, she’s the managing editor of the Saratogian, who has presided over the longest mystery in newsprint history, namely the one titled “The Case of the Missing News.” Summing things up for the many infrequent readers of the Saratogian, it is an ongoing saga about a small city newspaper that discovers one day its news content has mysteriously vanished. Lombardo becomes a wraith in the newsroom and frequently disappears for long stretches of time in the narrative of this epic tail.

Her latest mystery is much better. The antagonists in this piece are hoteliers Michael Hoffman and Frank Parillo, who mysteriously build a towering behemoth off Lake Avenue after nearly a decade of wrangling and hustling. Amazingly, this duo decides to put a restaurant in their sprawling development, a practice that is ever so peculiar in the hotel business.

Now here’s where the plot thickens. Hoffman and Parillo decide one day they want free advertising for their adjoining condominium complex. So they approach Lombardo –the story’s news ferret and heroine –to offer her a clue: a “popular restaurant” making its Saratoga debut.

Update: Just in case you forgot over the past 24 hours, the Saratogian has again announced the morning news conference to unveil this perplexing mystery. In an uncharacteristic morning Web update, they've re-announced this landmark event.

Stop the presses. Another restaurant is coming to the Spa City? Well gee, Sherlock. That never happens around here; at least not every day. Maybe every other day, but who’s really counting?

Update: And who’s really counting the number of so-called “upscale” Italian restaurants in the area? It’s not like there isn’t already an half-dozen of these eateries that boast “a serious wine collection” from the Mediterranean boot. Bellini’s, welcome to Saratoga Springs. Meet David Zecchini. You’ll be sharing customers until he decides to break the knees of your head chef on Travers Day.

The sad thing through all this pandering is that these two developers are going to “announce” this new restaurant on Thursday and still wouldn’t tip their hand to Lombardo, who all but wrote front page advertorial for their condo sales. The only thing she forgot to include was a phone number and e-mail address for the realtor she listed. But fear not, inquiring readers. It is most certainly listed elsewhere in the paper.

This type of news gives cause for the sweeping layoffs and circulation dips witnessed lately in journalism. For instance, FOX 23 News just slashed 11 positions from its newsroom and other departments on a day some staffers are calling “Wednesday Bloody Wednesday.” The layoffs are no big surprise, seeing as though the newscast always seems behind CBS 6 Albany, a perennial cellar-dweller in the ratings that is so confused they can’t even identify that their station is really in Niskayuna.

Yet somehow Lombardo eludes this ax as it swings through the increasingly crowded worlds of broadcast and print journalism. In most businesses, they fire the captain when he crashes the Valdez on the rocks. But in Lombardo’s case, the Journal Register Company seems content to let her continually steer the ship aground. And perhaps that’s the greatest mystery of them all.