Pun Salad

Picked this up at the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library thanks to its inclusion on the WSJ list of 2025's best mysteries (WSJ gifted link). If that's not enough for you, the book's Amazon page will reveal more copious critical praise.

But a mystery? Or even a crime thriller? You may ask yourself those questions until around page 307 of the 386-page hardcover; no mystery, and the crimes, if any, are pretty minor before that. But those last 80 pages are pretty blood-soaked.

The book reminded me somewhat of Tom Wolfe's novels, although the author's politics seem to be a couple miles to the left of Wolfe's. We have a detailed look at the three central characters: (1) Chicky is the titular doorman, working at the "Bohemia" apartment building on Central Park West in Manhattan. An honorable widower who is not just teetering on the edge of financial ruin, he's dropping down the cliffside, hitting every rocky outcropping and cactus on the way down. (2) Emily, living up in Bohemia's apartment 11C and D, is trapped in her marriage to a fantastically wealthy cartoon villain she despises. And (3) Julian, down in the much cheaper (but not cheap) apartment 2A, a "gallerist" (look it up, I had to) who is being edged into irrelevance by changing tastes and has a pretty serious health problem.

For the first 300-or-so pages, there is (of course) some building suspense, as we see hints and foreshadowing of what the book's finale will bring. But it's mostly a (very) well-written examination of the characters' inner lives and their environment. There's plenty of strife (economic, racial, ethnic, social), some steamy sex scenes, infidelity, occasional perversion. Just don't go in expecting a whodunit; keep your eyes open and you'll figure it out before it's revealed.