The Doorman by Chris Pavone

June 2025

With THE DOORMAN, Chris Pavone has written both a taut thriller and a brilliant social commentary on present-day New York, similar to what we saw in THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES.

Set over just one day, with generous backstory to give deeper meaning to his characters, Chris has portrayed different layers of New Yorkers. The first, as noted in the title, is the doorman, who opens doors, collects packages, and is acknowledged (or not) according to how you see him in his role. The others include the occupants of one of the biggest apartments in the building on one of the higher floors --- one that actually combined two spaces --- and the people who live in a more modest space on a lower floor.

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Julie Clark, author of The Ghostwriter

June 1975. The Taylor family shatters in a single night when two teenage siblings are found dead in their own home. The only surviving sibling, Vincent, never shakes the whispers and accusations that he was the one who killed them. Decades later, the legend only grows as his career as a horror writer skyrockets. Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has spent her entire professional life hiding the fact that she is the only child of Vincent Taylor. Now on the brink of financial ruin, she's offered a job to ghostwrite her father's last book. What she doesn't know, though, is that this project is another one of his lies. Because it's not another horror novel he wants her to write. After 50 years of silence, Vincent Taylor is finally ready to talk about what really happened that night in 1975.

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Jess Walter, author of So Far Gone

At Thanksgiving a few years back, a fed-up Rhys Kinnick punched his conspiracy-theorist son-in-law in the mouth, chucked his smartphone out a car window, and fled for a cabin in the woods, with no one around except a pack of hungry raccoons. Now Kinnick’s old life is about to land right back on his crumbling doorstep. Can this failed husband and father, a man with no internet and a car that barely runs, reemerge into a broken world to track down his missing daughter and save his sweet, precocious grandchildren from the members of a dangerous militia? With the help of his caustic ex-girlfriend, a bipolar retired detective, and his only friend (who happens to be furious with him), Kinnick heads off on a wild journey through cultural lunacy and the rubble of a life he thought he’d left behind.

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V. E. Schwab, author of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada. A young girl grows up wild and wily. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. 1827. London. A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family’s estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte’s tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow --- but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined. 2019. Boston. College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That’s why Alice moved halfway across the world. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, present and future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers…and revenge.

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Riley Sager, author of With a Vengeance

In 1942, six people destroyed Anna Matheson’s family. Twelve years later, she’s ready for retribution. Under false pretenses, Anna has lured those responsible for her family’s downfall onto a luxury train from Philadelphia to Chicago, an overnight journey of 13 hours. Her goal? Confront the people who have wronged her, get them to confess their crimes, and deliver them into the hands of authorities waiting at the end of the line. But Anna’s plan is quickly derailed by the murder of one of the passengers. As the train barrels through the night, it becomes clear that someone else on board is enacting their own form of revenge --- and they won’t stop until everyone else is dead.

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S. A. Cosby, author of King of Ashes

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family --- and the family business --- together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident, and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger. Roman, a financial whiz, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: himself, and his own particular set of skills.

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