Review by Booklist Review
For decades, doorman Chicky Diaz has greeted and guarded the Bohemia's residents with a smile, smiling even as his wife's cancer battle left him buried in loneliness and debt. Emily Longworth, the conflicted wife of sociopathic arms dealer Whit, is confronting the realization that she's trapped in a Faustian bargain: behind smiles and choreographed affection, the Longworths hate each other. Their neighbor, gallerist Julian Sonnenburg, is drawn to Emily by shared discomfort with their peers' elitism and casual mistreatment of others. As New York City erupts in protest after two police shootings of Black men, media leaks expose Whit's unscrupulous sales to brutal regimes. The resulting storm of collective rage breaks over the Bohemia, where Chicky, Emily, Julian, and Whit's lives depend on choosing their loyalties wisely. In a departure from his previous fast-paced thrillers (starting with The Expats, 2012), Pavone devotes much of this novel to developing social commentary through clever observations of class division. The climax, however, is classic Pavone, masterfully igniting the parallel conflicts of social unrest and the Longworths' escalating viciousness.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This adrenaline-pumping thriller from bestseller Pavone (Two Nights in Lisbon) delivers a lacerating, Tom Wolfe--worthy dissection of Manhattan society in the post-Covid era. The primary setting is the Bohemia, a storied Central Park West co-op where protagonist Chicky Diaz stands watch. A streetwise former Marine who moonlights as a security guard to pay off his late wife's crushing medical debt, Chicky has seen and done a lot--but nothing approaching the perfect storm of catastrophes that converge during the fraught hours over which the narrative unfolds. The intersecting story lines--which culminate in an armed robbery at the Bohemia--involve some of the building's highest-profile names. Chief among them are gorgeous former gallerist Emily Longworth and her billionaire husband, Whit, who was recently outed as an arms dealer but is privately known to Chicky as a man with a propensity for hiring call girls who look like his wife. Page-turning from the opening paragraph to its killer finale, the narrative combines noirish atmosphere with a sharp attunement to the particular depravities of ultrawealthy urbanites. Pavone's provocative look at the city that never sleeps will keep readers up well into the wee hours. Agent: David Gernert, Gernert Co. (May)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Manhattan doorman faces unwanted excitement in this thriller by the author ofTwo Nights in Lisbon(2022). Ex-Marine Chicky Diaz has been a doorman at the Bohemia Apartments for 28 years. He is "relentlessly upbeat," never breaks rules, never bad-mouths anyone. Everyone trusts him. He unfailingly greets each resident by name as they come and go--"Welcome home Mr. Goff" and "Let me get that bag for you Mrs. Frumm"--and seems unbothered by the financial and social chasm separating them from him. Chicky idly muses that anyone could kill or be killed around there with no one knowing it was going to happen. Nice foreshadowing, that. A widower with two daughters in college, he faces a mountain of unpaid medical bills because of his late wife's cancer, and he owes a ton of back rent. By stark contrast, the Bohemia's residents are all filthy rich. The building is "littered with Picassos, Chagalls, Renoirs. It's practically a museum." Wealthiest among them are Emily and Whit Longworth, a billionaire couple due to his business selling high-tech body armor. Before meeting Whit, Emily once cried after accidentally wasting 90 cents for an unneeded onion. And then her great beauty and sexual talent lead to matrimony and a family. Wanting to be a good person, she volunteers at a food pantry and quickly learns that it's not cool to show up for duty in a bleeping taxi. Not wanting to be a good person, Whit finds his eye wandering to hookers, and what he does with them is scary. The quiet hatred growing between Emily and Whit is key to the plot. Meanwhile, beyond the Bohemia, there is social unrest after multiple reports of cops or white-supremacist thugs killing innocent Black men. Will there be riots? More to the point, will they affect the Bohemia's wealthy residents? For his part, Chicky bears no one any ill will. He neither carries a weapon nor cares to and would just as soon be a passive observer. But he suffers a beatdown from a gang member named El Puño (The Fist) and is advised to apologize to the thug for having given offense. This leads to the bad guys learning what wealth lies inside those apartments. A plan develops. Will bullets fly? Will blood flow? Is the pope Catholic? Social, racial, and political commentary add color to the profanity-peppered pages. Readers will root for the doorman in this enjoyable yarn. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
