6 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Best Thrillers of the Year (So Far)
I want an ambitious big-city thriller about murder, lust and wealth
Chicky Diaz has been a doorman at a fancy Manhattan apartment building for nearly three decades, and in the course of a single, terrifying day will learn that he can't protect it from the city's chaos. Meanwhile, the building's millionaires and billionaires, who feel keenly the disparities in their circumstances, face a host of troubles, many of their own making. While a mystery hums beneath the narrative — it's clear from the start that someone won't make it out alive — 'The Doorman' is better read as a state-of-the-city novel about contemporary New York, a kaleidoscopic portrait of the city at a singularly unsettled time. Read our review.
I want to read a thriller about something incredibly specific
Who wants to read a novel about the trade in rare birds' eggs that thrived in England in the first half of the 20th century but is now illegal? Not me — or at least I didn't until I read this suspenseful, charming mystery. It begins in Yorkshire in 1926, when young Celie Sheppard daringly plucks a blazing red guillemot egg — coveted by collectors — from the side of a cliff, and takes us through the astonishing history of the egg and the people willing to lie, steal and even kill for it. Read our review.
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