Book Review | Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

Title: Lock Every Door
Author: Riley Sager
Publication Date: July 2, 2019
Publisher: Dutton
Page Count: 384 pages
My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

If you’re looking for a fun, exciting, page-turning (or swiping) summer thriller bordering on horror, then Lock Every Door is for you, especially if you’re already a Riley Sager fan. This was my second Sager book (my first was Final Girls) and I love the overarching atmosphere his books exude. I like thrillers that are grounded in reality, where characters somehow go on living their everyday lives amidst all the horrible things happening to them and around them.

Lock Every Door is set in the Bartholomew, a mysterious apartment building in Manhattan that’s said to be home to celebrities, artists, heirs & heiresses, and more. Our main character, Jules, gets the opportunity of a lifetime as an apartment sitter in this prestigious building. Fresh out of a longterm relationship and left with nowhere to live or work, Jules jumps at the opportunity. Three months in a luxury flat with no visitors, no nights away from the apartment, and no bothering the neighbors. Not too bad for thousands of dollars in compensation, right? The strict rules are only the beginning, of course, as Jules discovers more and more about the deepest, darkest secrets of Manhattan’s most peculiar residence.

It’s hard to talk about Lock Every Door without mentioning the Bartholomew in every sentence, because it is without a doubt the most memorable, eccentric character in the book. The building’s interior is your average, creepy old mansion with secrets around every corner. Plush couches, slightly disturbing wallpaper — the setting of every gothic horror novel. However, these scary, gothic mansions are usually in the middle of nowhere, right? The Bartholomew, on the other hand, is right smack dab in the middle of Midtown, where outside its walls, New Yorkers are conducting business as usual. Escaping is easy! Safety is right outside the door! The NYPD has over 50,000 employees, there must be a cop right around the corner! Wrong again. While Jules may not be stranded in the middle of nowhere, she is most certainly still “trapped.” Rather than physical distance, her psychological and financial situation is to blame for her entrapment. Which is much, much scarier.

I liked the book’s cast of characters, particularly the residents of the Bartholomew. Jules technically isn’t allowed to disturb them, but does anyone in a horror novel ever do what they’re told? There weren’t just good guys and bad guys, and people’s motives certainly weren’t black and white. I had a tough time telling who was trustworthy and who wasn’t, and I was still pretty torn in the end. There were still some standard baddies, which led to a few disappointing “big reveals” that I saw coming from a mile away. However, I think that’s a risk you take with any mystery or thriller. There are only so many characters; someone has to be the villain.

One thing I would have liked to have seen from this book was better relationship development. This is hard in thrillers, because so often they are strictly plot-focused, but I wanted a little bit more from this. I can’t say much without giving away major plot points, but Jules developed emotional connections with certain characters that…let’s just say they didn’t make it to the end of the book. I would have liked this to have been acknowledged in some way during the height of the drama. There’s a big difference between being threatened by a stranger and being betrayed by someone you trust, and I think this needed to be addressed. Jules’s reactions just didn’t seem valid given the circumstances. (Again, this probably doesn’t make any sense, but I can’t risk spoiling any of this book for any of you!)

Overall, Lock Every Door is a great example of what I look for in a thriller. Intriguing concept, fun characters, and a couple good, dramatic twists and turns. It was creepy enough for me to not want to read it before bed, but not scary enough to give me actual nightmares. Which is always a good thing. I like my thrillers comforting, okay? I would definitely recommend this as a beach or vacation read, or if you have a chunk of time set aside to devour a quick book in a day or two. There aren’t many books I literally don’t want to put down, but this was definitely one of them.