Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

November 27, 2019

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

When she is offered a job as an apartment sitter in the prestigious Bartholomew building in Manhattan, Jules Larsen thinks it is the answer to her prayers, a giant “do-over” button to re-start her life.  She has been through a lot of misfortune recently, so it seems like she is going to finally have some good luck.  While the building rules are strict and even unreasonable, she is thrilled to have the opportunity to live at the Bartholomew.  But when another apartment sitter in the building inexplicably disappears, Jules begins to wonder if something more is going on in the building.

I did not hate this.  On the positive side, this is a quick-paced read – I read it in a day.  It’s got a strong gothic feel:  creepy old building, mysterious residents, sudden disappearances, even the wallpaper is ominous (there are similarities to Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby).  It had that “Hotel California” vibe:  “you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”  All of the action takes place in less than a week, and since the setting is in an upscale neighborhood in a large city, it was easy for me to visualize the action (I live in Chicago and work in the downtown area).  There is a rather horrifying twist.  This is apartment sitting gone as wrong as it possibly can.

  

But the main character really irritated me.  Jules consistently jumped to conclusions based on very little evidence (Another house-sitter she has met twice not answering her phone?  She must have been kidnapped!  Two people wearing the same medical symbol?  They must be part of a cult!).  Her best friend Chloe keeps telling her that there’s something fishy about the whole deal, that the Bartholomew has a long history of tragedies, and if something seems too good to be true, it probably is, but Jules ignores all of the facts.  It’s fairly astounding that Jules is the one who puts the pieces together, since she is on the dim side.

The general format is similar to a number of other recent thrillers:  woman whose life has gone to hell gets an amazing job offer or a chance to turn her life around (Ruth Ware’s Turn of the Key, Jane Cockram’s House of Brides, Gilly Macmillan’s The Nanny).  If you are looking for a quick thriller, Lock Every Door is one of the better entries in this genre.