Title: Lock Every Door
Series: -
Author: Riley Sager
Description: No visitors. No nights spent away from the apartment.
No disturbing the other residents, all of whom are rich or famous or both. These
are the only rules Jules Larsen’s new job as an apartment sitter at the Bartholomew,
one of Manhattan’s most high-profile and mysterious buildings. Recently heartbroken
and just plain broke, Jules is taken in by the splendor of her surroundings and
accepts the terms, ready to leave her past life behind. As she gets to know the
residents and staff of the Bartholomew, Jules finds herself drawn to fellow apartment
sitter Ingrid, who comforting, disturbingly reminds her of the sister she lost
eight years ago. When Ingrid confides that the Bartholomew is not what it seems
and the dark history hidden beneath its gleaming façade is starting to frighten
her, Jules brushes it off as a harmless ghost story. Until the next day, when Ingrid
disappears. Searching for the truth about Ingrid’s disappearance, Jules digs
deeper into the Bartholomew’s dark past and into the secrets within its walls.
Review: Jules Larsen is a young woman for whom life has not been particularly
kind, to say the least. Currently, she is at rock bottom. Fired, dumped by her
boyfriend who cheated and as a result she is homeless and broke. Her best
friend Chloe offers her shelter, but it can’t go on like this for long. desperate
for new work, Jules responds to a small vague ad seeking a house sitter. Her sense
of unreality rises when it turns out that the apartment is in the Bartholomew Building,
an old iconic building from 1919, in the Gothic style, even lavishly outfitted
with stone gargoyles. Only the rich and famous live in the Bartholomew, and
they are very fond of their privacy. The striking thins is that Jules, in her
youth, read the book “Heart of a Dreamer” by the mysterious writer Greta Manville,
which was about a girl starting a new life in New York who ended up in the
luxurious world of the Bartholomew and found her happiness there… just as Jules
seems to be doing now. The offer is almost too good to be true. A fantastic
luxury apartment for three months and $4,000.00 a month in salary. For Jules,
the solution to all her problems. She ignores the vague feelings that something
isn’t right and all Chloe’s objections, because Chloe doesn’t trust it at all.
Jules, however, seizes the opportunity to reset her life with both hands.
This is Riley Sager’s third book and my first of his to read. His
writing style is so evocative that you are immediately in the middle of the
story. It makes “Lock Every Door” definitely count as a literary thriller. The description
of the building, of the rooms in the apartment, you just imagine yourself
inside. It evokes a vague idea of the boardgame Clue, but only in the beginning.
Soon it gets a lot more exciting and dark and you start to thing of a haunted
house.
The atmosphere in “Lock Every Door” becomes increasingly mysterious and Sager
manages to subtly introduce twists in the story and leave clues in a
subcutaneous way. You begin to notice odd inconsistencies in the pieces set in
the present, and Jules’ flashbacks to the recent past begin to become
increasingly strange and menacing. The rules she has to abide by in the house, the
other apartment sitters and residents who act separately, the people who have
disappeared over the years.
“Lock Every Door” is writing from the first person perspective, from the
perspective of Jules. The story flows smoothly with two timelines: the present
and several days in the past. The evens in the present put the reader on edge
right away, where the events in the past don’t really start exciting, but that
contrast is very intriguing. You do get a vague idea right away, knowing something
is off.
Once you start reading the book, you can’t put it down. And the climax
is surprising and disturbing at the same time. I will definitely read more of
Riley Sager’s work, because I really enjoyed “Lock Every Door”. Highly
recommend it.
Rating: 5 / 5
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