The New Couple in 5B by Lisa Unger

"The New Couple in 5B" by Lisa Unger is - yes, naturally a thriller - but also something else. Something more. Or different. There's a mood to the book that's absent from the author's other works. The setting is a periodic piece of a historic apartment building in New York, potentially plagued by ghosts and definitely plagued by weird neighbours and weirder paranormal social gatherings.

Definitely a must-read. Oh, and incidentally, the author has recently won the International Thriller Writers Thriller Award for Best Short Story with her work "Unknown Caller". Well deserved, it's brilliant!

Blurb:

Rosie and Chad Lowan are barely making ends meet in New York City when they receive life-changing news: Chad’s late uncle has left them his luxury apartment at the historic Windermere in glamorous Murray Hill. With its prewar elegance and impeccably uniformed doorman, the building is the epitome of old New York charm. One would almost never suspect the dark history lurking behind its perfectly maintained facade.

At first, the building and its eclectic tenants couldn’t feel more welcoming. But as the Lowans settle into their new home, Rosie starts to suspect that there’s more to the Windermere than meets the eye. Why is the doorman ever-present? Why are there cameras everywhere? And why have so many gruesome crimes occurred there throughout the years? When one of the neighbors turns up dead, Rosie must get to the truth about the Windermere before she, too, falls under its dangerous spell.