A modern-day thriller with gothic undertones…
Genre: Y/A, Thriller, Mystery,
No. of pages: 370
They’ve offered you a luxury apartment, rent free. THE CATCH: you may not live long enough to enjoy it…
No visitors. No nights spent away from the apartment. No disturbing the other residents.
These are the only rules for Jules Larson’s new job as apartment sitter for an elusive resident of the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan’s most high-profile private buildings and home to the rich and famous.
Recently heartbroken and practically homeless, Jules readily accepts the terms, ready to leave her past life behind.
Out of place among the extremely wealthy, Jules finds herself pulled toward other apartment sitter Ingrid. But Ingrid confides that the Bartholomew is not what it seems and the dark history hidden beneath its gleaming facade is starting to frighten her. Jules brushes it off as a harmless ghost story – but the next day, her new friend has vanished.
And then Jules discovers that Ingrid is not the first temporary resident to go missing…
Welcome to the Bartholomew…You may never leave.
I’ve really enjoyed Riley Sager’s work in the past and ‘Lock Every Door’ promises to be another chilling tale of a twisty murder mystery for an outwitting final girl. This book did not disappoint.
Our protagonist, Jules as an apartment sitter with a checkered past and sets up this novel nicely – though with the rules and regulations around this job immediately had flashing lights and sirens going off in my head. They were literally screaming ‘Run Girl!’ So the believability was on shaky ground from the get-go. What sort of haunted house ish was this set up? I don’t know if it was tongue-in-cheek, playing on the horror trope intentionally, or just lazy plotting.
The mystery part and tense ambience was written really well. I was making my list of suspects even before there was a murder to think of – and believe me there are plenty of suspects. I will say I had hunched out the mystery of sorts but then second-guessed myself because I thought it was too obvious; though the details of said mystery were way off, so it kept me interested and the pay-off was well worth the journey to get there.
The world building is executed with aplomb. Marrying the New York City and gothic tone of the Bartholomew were just perfection – sprinkle in a little bit of isolation and powerlessness for Jules and it paints the perfect landscape for this thriller. There is a heavy element of trying to impose the supernatural in ‘Lock Every Door’ that I feel wasn’t dealt with properly – it could have been so much more than it was.
I think some of the ridiculousness of the plot, combined with a missed opportunity is what held me back from being fully immersed in the story, but Sager’s writing style really shines.
I’m on the fence about recommending this one – it’s an entertaining read for sure, but there was something about this that just didn’t sell the story for me… so I’ll say a soft recommendation. Maybe for the reader who wants a taste of the mystery/thriller demographic but who doesn’t read a lot in that genre.
Overall feeling: Spooky-oooky
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Casey Carlisle 