Lock Every Door

When Jules comes home early because she has been laid off, she finds her boyfriend with another girl. Without a job and no home anymore, she is close to giving up when she sees an ad for a house sitter. This might solve both her problems for the moment. When she enters the apartment for the first time, the interior holds up to what the outside of this old Upper West Side house promised. The Bartholomew is incredible and Jules more than happy when she is hired for the job which is paid more than generously: one thousand dollars per week. But there are some strict rules to follow. When you’ve got nowhere else to go and no money in your bank account, you agree to almost everything, but Jules has no idea what she has agreed to with moving into the Bartholomew.

Riley Sager’s thriller got me hooked from the very beginning. I like those stories with old houses in which there are strange sounds you cannot identify and that have secrets behind every door and residents who are suspicious in every imaginable and unimaginable way. The setting is just perfectly chosen for a spine-tingling story and the way the author composed the story, with foreshadowings which give you some idea of what might come without telling too much, keeps you alert and thrilled all the time.

I liked the protagonist Jules immediately, she seems to be a clever young woman, with her family background not an easy prey for wrongdoers. You sympathise with her due to her very poor situation and the luck that seems to have come to her life unexpectedly. The inhabitants of the house are intriguingly drawn, quite eccentric but well-fitting to the surrounding.

Yet, what I liked best was that fact that when I was sure to have sorted out everything, I had to learn that I was downright wrong with my assumptions. Really some unexpected turns and connections - masterly done! Nevertheless, it all adds up and makes completely sense, looking at the plot again from the end, you see how you misinterpreted signs and easily were deceived by the author. Brilliantly done and well written, one of those books that you hate to finish.