The Doorman by Chris Pavone

A story of murder, sex, race and priviledge - not necessarily in this order, The Doorman by Chris Pavone is an intricated story mostly taking place in a high-end luxury building in the posh part of New York City. 

I´ve read other book by Pavone, The Expats as it insidously catches the secrets of a group of expatriates and their illusions. His latest, The Doorman is keeping the same take on the secrets hidden by glamorous creatures, but goes a bit farther on, as all characters, including the doorman and its manager, do have dark spots that they prefer not to share. 

What most of the posh characters do hide, is the average wishes beyond their expensive lives. They may be safe from worrying about the future, but their present is encumbred by failed personal dreams and broken love stories. Overall, they are lonely, in the ways in which rich people living in posh addresses may be. 

Born and raised in New York, Chris Pavone seized the spirit of the city, with its fantastic diversity and extremes that may co-exist. In the book, you may found a gay-closeted tattoed Ukrainian, alongside an eccentric art collector and a greedy military contractor. 

The Doorman is lengthly allowing the characters to explain themselves, we are introduced into their familiar environment. It feels like we have all the time in the world, including for digressions about capitalism and BLM. A bit too much in my opinion because in this way the narrative is out of control confusing the reader: what are we having here? what is the story about? is there any thriller sub-plot we may expect? The latter actually happens, but in the very few minutes of the book, and we may need a couple of further explanations and angles to really understand what happened. The author keps the keys to all those details, anyway.

Althouugh I enjoyed some parts of the writing - especially when describing places and New York ambiance - from the point of view of the story I wasn´t thrilled. The readig advanced extremely slowly and without any pleasure in really getting engaged into its denouement. 

Rating: 3 stars