Lucy Foley has become one of the big names in chick-lit thrillers- you’ve probably seen the cover of this one on some of Goodreads ‘best of’ lists or the eye-level shelf at Indigo (The Guest List, The Hunting Party, The Paris Apartment- think out of focus black and white photos with bright colorful (hot pink, electric yellow, bright red) titles). This was the first of hers I’ve read, and it was fun (and tense! The woman knows how to dial up the stress level. The word I was using to describe it was ‘claustrophobic’, which made sense for the hothouse ‘world within an apartment building’ setting that she created in this novel).
The novel is written first-person perspective from multiple narrators, each occupying an apartment in a small, gated Paris apartment building. Our main narrator is Jess, a twenty-something ne’er do-well who arrives to visit her older half-brother, Ben. She is short on cash and phone credit and when she arrives at Ben’s apartment he is nowhere to be found and there are disturbing signs that Something Bad might have happened to him. Other apartment desnizens include an older rich socialite, Ben’s maybe-friend, a young woman with some mental health issues and the watchful but secretive concierge (to be fair: all of these characters are secretive).
There is a big revelation about a third of the way into the book that really hooked me- it was almost like the mystery and tension had been cranking things tighter/tenser and the reveal opened things up back up (my waning interest was revived). There was another twist that Foley saved until the end, and which I didn’t see coming- very satisfying.
This won’t win any literary prizes- the writing feels breathy and short, sentences aren’t fully formed- but it works for the subject matter. Likewise, I haven’t been thinking about deeper social or systemic issues since I finished (I should note: Foley does build in some darker subject matter into the mystery, but its salacious plot point, not a call to think about those issues seriously).
If you’re looking for something to fill that thriller hole in your reading schedule (think Girl in Cabin 10/Girl on the Train/Gone Girl), this fits the bill.
