(Aug. 31, 2025) — Before I begin to sing the praises of Chris Pavone’s latest literary thriller, “The Doorman,” let me say what a great honor and pleasure it has been to write for The Pioneer these many years.
For readers already familiar with Pavone’s thrillers, “The Doorman” is a world apart. In fact, Pavone has traded the wide, wide world of his other thrillers for the world of the Bohemia, a much esteemed and beloved New York City apartment building. Instead of characters chasing or being chased into and out of various European countries, this story’s landscape is identified apartment-by-apartment, floor-by-floor.
Time is of the essence. By page 2, we know that somebody is going to be killed before the day is over. We don’t know who or why. Pavone masterly sets the story’s pace, taking its time to reach thrilling. Between meeting each character by name and apartment number, we are given the time to know not only what they do day-to-day, but what they did in their past and how they came to live at the Bohemia.
Chicky Diaz has worked as the Bohemia’s doorman for longer than any resident has called it home. He is as esteemed and beloved as the building itself. He does more than open doors, hail cabs or sweep the sidewalk. He greets the residents by name, with a smile (rain or shine), shares pleasantries, carries packages and never invades their privacy. Unless absolutely necessary.
The Bohemia is Chicky’s world. “A doorman is always at the Bohemia’s front door in the path between the residents and any inconvenience of any danger or anything else they don’t want.”
The tension builds as characters’ stories overlap in love, corruption, lies, revenge, betrayal. When will the murder happen? Who will be killed? By whom, and why? As readers, we begin to guess.
Nobody, not even Chicky, is safe. The Bohemia is filled with people we care about and people who care about each other, some more than others. We keep guessing right up to the explosive end.
The body count isn’t the whole story. Pavone saves that for the days after, for the last page of the last chapter.
Sunny Solomon
Sunny Solomon holds an MA in English/Creative Writing, San Francisco State University. She is a book reviewer for “The Clayton Pioneer” and her poetry and other writing has been published in literary journals, one chapbook, In the Company of Hope and the collection, Six Poets Sixty-six Poems. She was the happy manager of Bonanza Books, Clayton, CA and Clayton Books, Clayton, CA. She continues to moderate a thriving book club that survived the closure of the store from which it began. Sunny currently lives next to the Truckee in Reno, NV.
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