Lisa Unger's Latest, The New Couple in 5B, is a Wonderful, Mystical Page-turner Mystery and became my First 2025 Personal Favorite

 

Overture 

You. Standing on solid ground, reaching. Me. On the ledge, looking down. All around me, stars. Stars in the sky, the city a field of glittering, distant celestial bodies. Each light a life. Each life a doorway, a possibility. That’s the thing I’ve always loved about my work, the way I can disappear into someone else. I shed myself daily, slipping into other skins. Some of them more comfortable than my own. 

“Don’t,” you say. “Don’t do this. It doesn’t have to be this way.” I hear all the notes of desperation and fear that sing discordant and wild, a cacophony in my own heart. And I think that maybe you’re wrong. Maybe everything I am and everything I’ve done, has led me here to this teetering edge. There was no other possible ending. No other way.

 Sirens. As distant and faint as birdsong. It seems as if, in this city, they never stop wailing, someone always on their way to this emergency or that crisis. Rushing to help or stop or save. From the outside, it seems like chaos. But when you are inside, it’s quiet, isn’t it? Just another moment. 

Only this time the worst thing is about to happen, or might, or might not, to us. Every flicker of light, every passing second, just a shift of weight and another outcome becomes real. “Please.” Under the fear, the pleading of your tone, I hear it—hope. You’re still hopeful. Still holding on to those other possibilities. But when I look at you now, I know—and you know it, too, don’t you?—that I’ve made too many dark choices, that there is no outcome but this one. The one that sets us both free right here and right now. 

Pounding. They’re at the door. You know what’s funny? Even on that day we first met, I knew it would end like this. Not really. Not exactly this, not a premonition, or a vision of the future. But even in the light you shined on me, even as you made me be the person I always wanted to be, there was this dark entity hovering, a specter. The destroyer. You were always too good for me, and I knew I could never hold on to the things we would build together. 

Sounds rise and converge—your voice, their pounding, that wailing, the endless honking and whir of movement from this place we have lived in and loved. The weight of my body, I close my eyes and feel it. The beating of my heart, the rise and fall of my breath. I tilt and wobble on the edge, as you move closer, hands outstretched. “We’ll be okay,” you whisper. At least I think that’s what you say. I can hardly hear you over all the noise. Your eyes, like the city below me, a swirling galaxy of lights. You’re close now, hand reaching. Just one step forward or backward. Which one? Which one, my love?

~~~

A jazz piano in the corner fills the room with an unfamiliar but lighthearted tune, the young singer’s voice smoky and full of secret laughter. He’s waiting at the bar. I see him right away, though the room is only dimly lit by candles on bistro tables. You are the one for me, the singer croons. There’s no one else. Again, before the man I’ve come to meet sees me, I almost turn and go back to my husband. Paul will never even know I was gone. And if he did, I could just say I slipped out for cigarettes, and he’ll be glad for it because he wanted a smoke after dinner, and we were out. It’s not too late to be the wife I wanted to be. Paul, my husband. I love him. I do. It’s just that he wants to stay in always, and I want—no, I need—to go out. I want to move my body on stage, or anywhere, the music pulsing, desiring eyes on me. He’s quiet, a writer, always thinking about the stories in his head. And me, I don’t come alive until I’m out in the world—talking, laughing, drinking, dancing. He wants to sit by the fire, like we’re old and gray. But the city—with its nightclubs and bars, its stages and bright lights, fancy restaurants and glittering people—it calls to me, especially when the sun goes down.

Unger has given us a multi-genre novel that spectacularly moves from romance for multiple people, a setting that is intriguing both by the architecture with gargoyles and other creepy supernatural activities such as a ghost or two of living in the old hotel, the Windermere. The  structure has been occupied by the same people--they purchase a suite--for too many years to count! Throw in pendants with a silver hand with the evil eye stone in its palm that seems to be worn by just about everybody in the hotel, except the main character. Then refer to flashbacks to those who died in the hotel in the past... Shall I keep on going? Seriously, Unger has produced a stunning book that will keep you totally involved as each new page brings something new or unexpected! (see also Heartbroken, another of her fantastic books!)

ACT I the inheritance 

Look like the innocent flower,

 but be the serpent under it.

 William Shakespeare

Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 5

The book begins when we meet the couple who are the main characters, Chad and Rosie. Chad is an actor and Rosie is an author who is trying to work on her next book, while Chad is trying to find a leading, ongoing role... Rosie has just been told that her manuscript is lacking in that "something" that should be there... Her genre is True Crime, which later in the book, finds her contemplating a focus on the hotel and the number of murders that has occurred there. Chad is now off-off broadway and always out auditioning... Rosie was on alert almost from the beginning of their moving in... First of all her sister had called to tell her she had a horrible dream about her and that she was in danger. Then Rosie miscarried... And, she is very concerned about the doorman, Abi, who seems to be everyplace (think Lurch) but rarely responds to Rosie's questions. Abi had been giving Rosie a tour when she had her first scare in the basement, when she saw a small boy, but was told by everybody that there was no children in the building... Soon they were being pulled in to all kinds of activities by the tenants there, even having a celebration when they learned she was pregnant. That was her first fight with Chad, he had promised her that they would keep her pregnancy secret, yet he had told their neighbors... His response to Rosie was not what she wanted to hear... When Rosie learned that the only way to get in and out of the building was to use the elevator which was, also manned by the doorman, Abi, she was finding out more and more about the place and decided that, yes, she wanted to start investigating and writing her book... As she started asking questions, two people were murdered! Was it her fault? 

But things got worse from there...

Unger is a well-known author that hones in on suspense of all kinds. In this one, she's won acclaim both from me and many others... Do check out her books if you are not already reading this fantastic writer! Don't miss this one!

During the last months, both of them had been taking care of Chad's only relative Ivan, who lived in Windermere, and recently died. Rosie and Chad had inherited his suite of rooms. This soon becomes a complicated problem since Ivan's estranged daughter plans to sue them, believing that they persuaded her father to give them her expected inheritance!

Rosie has relatives, but is also estranged from them, mainly because they are shysters, but with some talent, of various kinds... Rosie does have a gift that begins to become active after they move into the Windermere...

Around the next corner there’s a crouched form. I almost say her name. Sarah. It’s not Sarah, of course, but a little boy, in a smart school uniform, crisp white shirt and black leather shoes. He’s on the ground, his arms wrapped around his legs, resting his forehead on his knees. I can see the rise and fall of his breath. The blond of his hair glints in the light from my phone. He must be scared, maybe playing in the basement when the lights went out. “Hey,” I say. I didn’t think there were any children in this building. Must be a visiting grandchild. He could have come down the service elevator or the stairs. “It’s okay. The lights will come back on and Abi’s on his way.” I move in closer, reach out a hand to gently touch his back, but as I do, he turns. I reel back in horror. His eyes are gouged out, and his throat is a hideous blue-black. He opens his mouth wide and it’s a maw, its darkness swirling and endless. He issues a horrible shriek that electrifies every nerve ending in my body. I back up into the concrete wall, hitting my head hard against an exposed pipe. My own scream is an echo of his. He moves closer, closer, and I turn to run from him. But the lights come on as suddenly as they went off, and I run right straight into Abi, who comes fast around the corner looking as scared as I feel. “Ms. Lowan,” he says. “Are you hurt? You were screaming.” “There’s a boy,” I say. But I spin and there’s nothing there. “He was right here.” I follow the path of the blood that must be dripping from my own head. But the hallway dead ends at the laundry room—which in the light, looks about as crisp and white and unscary as a place can look. I put a hand to the side of my head. When I draw my fingers back, they’re wet with blood...

Rosie was on alert almost from the beginning of their moving in... First of all her sister had called to tell her she had a horrible dream about her and that she was in danger. Then Rosie miscarried... And, she is very concerned about the doorman, Abi, who seems to be everyplace (think Lurch) but rarely responds to Rosie's questions. Abi had been giving Rosie a tour when she had her first scare in the basement, when she saw a small boy, but was told by everybody that there was no children in the building... Soon they were being pulled in to all kinds of activities by the tenants there, even having a celebration when they learned she was pregnant. That was her first fight with Chad, he had promised her that they would keep her pregnancy secret, yet he had told their neighbors... His response to Rosie was not what she wanted to hear... When Rosie learned that the primary way to get in and out of the building was to use the elevator which was, also manned by the doorman, Abi, she was finding out more and more about the place and decided that, yes, she wanted to start investigating and writing her book... As she started asking questions, two people were murdered! Was it her fault? 

But things got worse from there...

Unger is a well-known author that hones in on suspense of all kinds. In this one, she's won acclaim both from me and many others... Do check out her books if you are not already reading this fantastic writer! Don't miss this one!

Notes:

Songs were selected by me based upon the book's content.

I have includes a fairly revelatory paragraph about a ghost. To me, this is similar exposure such as "Chucky" or The Two Twins in The Shining trailers and do not reveal anything of the actual story. If you disagree, let me hear from you in the comments...

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