Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

 2 stars

Great premise hindered by a below-than-average execution.

With such premise I was looking forward to a psychological thriller in the vein of Rosemary's Baby, which the novel definitely takes inspiration from; but what we ended up is a skeletal frame of a plot without any of the delicious meat...

Lock Every Door is full of inconsequential padding; the telltale sign first appeared when it took 13 chapters to set off a plot point mentioned in its synopsis (the character Ingrid's disappearance), and the duo-timelines device sprinkled throughout the narrative ultimately provided very little payoff—those chapters can be completely skipped without missing any significant development.

Riley Sager's basic, unadorned writing style is another downgrading factor for me, which seems to work against the genre that is desperate for intricate mood-setting and atmosphere. It's like watching a movie filmed with office fluorescent light and IKEA furniture—yes, lines are delivered and plot understood, but in the least engrossing way possible.

The combination of a sluggish pacing and passionless writing drives my full attention to scrutinize Lock Every Door's plot, which is filled with obvious holes and logic gaps, beyond my typical thriller genre tolerance. It's as if the publisher rushed to push the book out, without giving it the final polish, because a lot of its clumsiness could've been cleaned up through a couple more rounds of editing.

Spoiler:
(view spoiler)

Ultimately, Lock Every Door was not a fulfilling read; it has a promising setup, but everything else feels extremely sloppy and unfinished. Which got me concerned, as I already have the same author's Home Before Dark sitting next to me...