4 Stars from me!

Another belter from one of my all time favourite authors, Linwood Barclay!

Elevator Pitch is clever and incredibly fast paced - you will race through this book whether you plan to or not as you will be swept up and along in the mayhem as the story unfolds.

As ever with Barclay's books, the characterisation is sublime - whether someone features for half a chapter or whether they are in it for the whole book - you literally feel as though you know the person, you can see them, smell them, imagine their apartment or their features and practically hear their voice. Linwood Barclay is a genius in this respect.

I love all the clever little touches - like the #poorGlover hashtag and all the fake Mayor twitter accounts, I love all the petty squabbles between couples and the minute details about a persons day.

My overall favourite Linwood Barclay book remains Never Saw It Coming but I highly recommend this author and any of his work - if you want a consistently clever, entertaining and intelligent read you won't go far wrong.

Synopsis: The New York Times bestselling author of A Noise Downstairs and No Time for Goodbye returns with an edge-of-your-seat thriller that does for elevators what Psycho did for showers and Jaws did for the beach—a heart-pounding tale in which a series of disasters paralyzes New York City with fear.

It all begins on a Monday, when four people board an elevator in a Manhattan office tower. Each presses a button for their floor, but the elevator proceeds, non-stop, to the top. Once there, it stops for a few seconds, and then plummets. Right to the bottom of the shaft.

It appears to be a horrific, random tragedy. But then, on Tuesday, it happens again, in a different Manhattan skyscraper. And when Wednesday brings yet another high-rise catastrophe, one of the most vertical cities in the world—and the nation’s capital of media, finance, and entertainment—is plunged into chaos.

Clearly, this is anything but random. This is a cold, calculated bid to terrorize the city. And it’s working. Fearing for their lives, thousands of men in women working in offices across the city refuse leave their homes. Commerce has slowed to a trickle. Emergency calls to the top floors of apartment buildings go unanswered.

Who is behind this? Why are they doing it? What do these deadly acts of sabotage have to do with the fingerless body found on the High Line? Two seasoned New York detectives and a straight-shooting journalist must race against time to find the answers before the city’s newest, and tallest, residential tower has its Friday night ribbon-cutting.

With each diabolical twist, Linwood Barclay ratchets up the suspense, building to a shattering finale. Pulsating with tension, Elevator Pitch is a riveting tale of psychological suspense that is all too plausible . . . and will chill readers to the bone.

“This novel moves as fast as a falling elevator and hits with just as much force. Linwood Barclay is a stone cold pro and Elevator Pitch is a shameless good time.”
—Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman and Strange Weather

This book was hard to read as I have a phobia about lifts.
There were many stories within the story and on the whole these were interwoven well.
This is a solid book with lots of underlying tension

I'm a fan of Linwood Barclay, he takes everyday, seemingly boring scenarios and turns them into desperate races for life. People that seemed to be your average middle class person living a quiet existence become murderers, terrorists or criminals hunting out their pray. The description of his latest book, Elevator Pitch, certainly sounded different and interesting. The book started well, a few unsuspecting New Yorkers killed in a lift accident. It then goes onto a more grisly episode with a visiting Russian Scientist. So far so good. But them it becomes a different book entirely, we get an insight to the goings on in the office of Richard Headley, mayor of NY and the head of an organisation called Flyovers who happily blow people up. Similarly we have Barbara, a journalist who constantly writes critical articles about the Mayor, her daughter, Arla, Grover, the Mayor's son, and Chris, a mayoral aid, who is someone Barbara fancies. From then on it's a bit more Mills and Boon rather than a thriller. Without wanting to appear cruel, a few more lift accidents would have been acceptable, more thriller like incidents. Although the lift theme does come up again in the ending scenes. Having said all that, I did enjoy reading it immensely and it was a real page turner even if it was not entirely in Linwood's style.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC, which I have enjoyed reading.
Whilst I enjoyed reading this book by Linwood Barclay I do not think that Elevator Pitch was one of his best books. It was a good read and kept the reader interested but it was just okay. Whereas I have read some of his earlier books and they were engrossing and intriguing and kept the reader involved and wanting to know what happened next.
It was worthwhile reading, just not one of his better books.
Recommended.

This book started very strong and glued me to the page. I like the premise and the pace.
But, it got a little slower in the middle. The end was really good. Enjoyed the writing, the tension. I'm a little more scared of lifts though!
Thanks a lot NetGalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher a few months before the book was published. I'm basing my review on the assumption that the copy that I received is not the final version. I say this because there were so many errors - spelling mistakes, missing words, layout errors, grammatical errors, and other typing errors - that I assume that they will not appear in the final version. Despite this caveat, unfortunately the errors were so numerous (averaging at least one per page), that it made it hard to engage with the book at times.

Putting the errors to one side, there is a very enjoyable story in here. It did feel at times that the author was in a rush to get to the concluding part of the book. And as great as that was, I would have preferred to see more detail in the earlier chapters, developing the characters more, more description to go with the conversations.

Eleavator pitch by Linwood Barclay
I really enjoyed this book and have no hesitation in recommending it. The premise was sound and the characters were well developed. Quite a few threads which all worked well and were concluded well- often in a book you get a sense of one or more parts of the storyline having a rushed conclusion but this was not the case. I’m really keen to hear more about the cases detectives Delgado and Bourque get involved in and, of course, from Barbara, who I reckon will never be able to resist a good investigative journalistic situation! Excellent book

This story starts with four people in an elevator which plummets to the ground killing all four people. It is thought to be an isolated incident until there are more disasters involving elevators. The story is told from several prospectives. I felt the main character was Barbara who was a journalist and determined to get to the bottom of who was behind these attacks and why.

I was really excited to start this book. It kept me on the edge of my seat at the beginning but I started to lose interest in the middle. I didn’t really care about the subplots either. It did get a lot better towards the end. I didn’t guess who was behind the attacks and/or why which I always appreciate. I could imagine this making a good Netflix series.

You board the elevator, just like you do every morning. Your eyes are glued to your smartphone as you tap from news site, to weather app, to social media feeds and back again. You take little notice of the others surrounding you and they are all immersed inside their own virtual morning routines. But something sparks you out of it. The elevator is not moving. You jab impatiently at the ground floor button but the elevator does not move. When it finally does it rises, away from your conjoined destination. A group sigh is released. The elevator stops again. This time it falls down to your destination. It continues to fall. It does not stop. It hits the ground shattering its metal frame and every bone contained inside of it.

This is the nightmare reality that is plaguing New York, when a slew of consecutive elevator murders take place, leaving every modern high-rise to feel like the creation of a haunted horror film.

Despite the modern setting, this is exactly the type of thrilling reading it also provided for the reader, as gory murder was delivered with inevitable conclusion but with the most drawn-out and suspenseful of narrative styles.

Surrounding this was a politically-heightened focus that provided perspectives from the fields of the police force, the media, and the mayor's office. Who to trust and who to believe inside of them was often tricky and it required my intrigue and investment in every one of their stories.

Two major plot twists had me reeling early on and I maintained my excitement in this story until a final third grand reveal and the high-stakes conclusion. This intrigue had me pressure-reading throughout, despite a small early resistance when the political focus felt not to my current tastes. However Barclay soon had me bypassing this and also ensured himself as a writer to trust and one I will definitely read from again.

Chilling tense a book that grabbed me from the first pages into a whirlwind of fear terror.A multilayered story that grabs you keeps you on the edge of your seat. #netgalley#ha

Ohhhh what a ride this book is. Thrilling, exciting, fast, a few red herrings thrown into the mix and away we go on a scaaaaary ride! What Hitchcock did for showers, Spielberg for sharks,etc Linwood Barclay does for elevators. Now I know why I've been an elevator -phobe all my life - and this thriller does nothing to diminish my fear. You just know when you crack open a Barclay novel that you're in for some serious thrilling entertainment and ELEVATOR PITCH is no exception to this. I was holding on for dear life.........and if you happen to live in a high-rise building and are dependent on elevators ? YIKES.....better get your running shoes at the ready to tackle the stairs because this book will put you of elevators for life. Loved this book and my thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. It was a good 'un.

Don't read this if you have cleithrophobia but if you are after a good thriller to read on the beach, this is for you.

This novel was a little like the mercury in a thermometer on a Spring day hovering over the 14 degree mark, feeling slightly warm on a cloudy day but then the sun came out and the mercury rose to 30 degrees giving a stonking, heart stopping climax.

Having read a couple of Linwood Barclay books previous to this one, I thought that I had a a pretty good idea of what to expect. However I was wrong - the story meandered with twists and turns until the end.

In New York, a city filled with elevators serving all manner of high rises, apartment blocks and city towers, there are 3 incidents involving lifts spread over the opening 3 days of the week. These incidents are coupled up with a mysterious death as well as preceding an exploding taxi cab, setting up the story ahead.

As ever, Barclay keeps his reader guessing until the end.

This is a story full of suspense with 2 stories running in parallel. The premise of the story is a very clever but simple way to bring to a standstill the whole of Manhattan. A small cast of characters is split into 3 areas, the police, the mayor's office and the journalist. A gripping story that provides a totally unexpected twist at the end. My first book by this author but certainly not my last.

An absolutely stunning diabolical thriller, full of everything that satisfies a reader. It starts at breakneck speed and doesn't stop: multiple story-lines blurring, converging and providing red herrings joined with a terribly plausible, memorable and fiendishly simple pot mechanism. Brilliant!

It all begins on a Monday, when four people board an elevator in a Manhattan office tower. Each presses a button for their floor, but the elevator proceeds, non-stop, to the top. Once there, it stops for a few seconds, and then plummets. Right to the bottom of the shaft.

It appears to be a horrific, random tragedy. But then, on Tuesday, it happens again, in a different Manhattan skyscraper. And when Wednesday brings yet another high-rise catastrophe, one of the most vertical cities in the world--and the nation's capital of media, finance, and entertainment--is plunged into chaos.

Clearly, this is anything but random. This is a cold, calculated bid to terrorize the city. And it's working. Fearing for their lives, thousands of men in women working in offices across the city refuse leave their homes. Commerce has slowed to a trickle. Emergency calls to the top floors of apartment buildings go unanswered.

Who is behind this? Why are they doing it? What do these deadly acts of sabotage have to do with the fingerless body found on the High Line? Two seasoned New York detectives and a straight-shooting journalist must race against time to find the answers before the city's newest, and tallest, residential tower has its Friday night ribbon-cutting.

The story centres around the Mayor of the city and Barbara who works for a newspaper, of which there is no love lost between these two characters. We get to see the busy lifestyle of someone in power and the behind the scenes of when things go wrong and a city desperate to lay the blame at someones feet. It does make for some compelling reading.

The sense of fear in people really stands out in the story. The suspense and tension was just electrifying and I couldn’t turn those pages quick enough to see who was responsible. There was more than a few jaw dropping moments where I had to go back and re read to fully comprehend what I had just read. Those moments are the best part of the book

Elevator Pitch is brilliant. Pure and simple. I absolutely loved it. This is a hands down must read and what a fantastic film it would make too. An exhilarating and intense read with plenty of thrills along the way. Be prepared to hold on tight!

Many thanks to NetGalley and HQ General Fiction for an advance copy in return for a fair and honest review.

Four unrelated people are in an elevator in a skyscraper in New York when it becomes unresponsive to the travellers requests and stops and starts at random floors. Suddenly it plunges to the ground and all occupants are killed. A seemingly tragic accident until an incident occurs in another elevator the following day. Is it terrorism or just an awful coincidence? As the Mayor tries in vain to call for calm, panic starts to build and for police officers Bourque and Delgado it is a race against time before further deaths occur and the city grinds to a halt. Chilling with heart stopping moments and tension in every chapter, this thrilling book delivers in spades. Linwood Barclay is an absolute genius in imagining complex plots that are believable and thought provoking. The breathtaking finale was unpredictable and brilliantly written.

Another fast paced thriller of a ride from Linwood Barclay. This one differs a little as it is more political and has more persepctives than some of his other books.

The different perspectives are easy to follow and keep the reader hooked and guessing what is going to happen. There are a few unexpected twists and it explores interesting (and worrying) attitudes that are becoming more mainstream in America now...

Engaging, easy to read but with food for thought.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and author for the chance to review this advanced copy.

Interesting and tense thriller – accidents start to happen in the elevators of New York, leading to terrible injuries and death. The authorities are anxious to avoid total panic and chaos among the population when this vital everyday lifeline is compromised. When is the right time to call an official emergency? Are more deaths caused by people climbing hundreds of stairs than they would have been in a theoretical attack? Is it even an 'attack'?

Interesting theory about the ‘Flyovers’ – (those that live in the body of America and their opinions of those that live on the coastal areas). Fits in well with our paranoia about terrorism and also the divisions there must be among the American people having their current President (no criticism here; it’ll be exactly the same in UK if Boris gets in!)

You have your theories about who is responsible, but are left guessing until the last moment - an entertaining and tense read.