Lock Every Door

May 20, 2019
Jules Larsen, the 25-year-old heroine of this compulsively readable thriller from bestseller Sager (The Last Time I Lied), has hit rock bottom. Scarred by the deaths of her parents and the disappearance of her sister years before, she has recently lost her administrative assistant job and learned that her boyfriend has been cheating on her. With her finances perilously low, Jules responds to an ad for a house sitter at a Manhattan luxury apartment building, which turns out to be the Bartholomew, the setting for her favorite book, a bestselling novel published in the ’80s about a 20-year-old orphan who lives there. In order to earn $12,000 for living in one of the Bartholomew’s vacant apartments for three months, she must follow strict rules, which include absolutely no visitors and refraining from interacting with the other residents. Jules leaps at the opportunity, only to learn that the property is rumored to be haunted and that her acceptance of the job may be placing her in jeopardy. Fans of Ira Levin, to whom the book is dedicated, will be delighted by Sager’s clever variation on a typical Levin plot. Agent: Michelle Brower, Aevitas Creative Management.

Dylan Moore's emotional narration delivers taut Hitchcockian suspense. After losing her job, apartment, and unfaithful boyfriend all in one day, 20-something Jules finds a well-paid apartment-sitting position in the storied Bartholomew building in Manhattan. As the story slips between the present and scant days before, Moore expresses the raw exhaustion and horror of the present and the cautious optimism Jules feels when she moves in and starts her life over. With rich character voices that nail the rich and famous of the Upper West Side, Moore creates a vivid world in this thriller. When Jules follows the trail of missing people and occult history swirling around the Bartholomew, Moore tempers the panic rising in Jules's voice with enough grit for listeners to brave the thrills ahead. S.T.C. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine