The Doorman

Chicky Diaz stands on his little patch of the earth, the clean quiet sidewalk in front of the Bohemia Apartments, thinking: there sure are a lot of great places to kill someone in this city.Chicky is a doorman at New York City's world-famous apartment block, housing celebrities, financiers and the cultural elite.Gathered in its basement, the almost entirely Black and Hispanic staff is reeling. Just a few miles away, a Black man has been killed by the police, leading to a long night of violence across the city.But these rising tensions aren't what most concern Chicky. There's more going on within the rooms of the Bohemia than anyone's aware of. In fact, ahead of tonight's shift, he bought a gun even before he knew of the rising pandemonium.Tonight, enemies will clash, loyalties will be tested, secrets will be revealed – and lives will be lost.

""With its laser-sharp satire, its delicious set pieces in both rich and poor neighborhoods - a co-op board meeting, a Harlem food pantry and more - and its portrait of a restive city torn apart by inequality, resentment and excess, The Doorman naturally invites comparison to The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe's lacerating dissection of New York in the 1980s . . . But Pavone's humor is more humane, his sympathy for the characters' struggles and contradictions more acute. With his eye for absurdity and ear for nuance, he seems as if he's writing not from some elevated place high above the city, but from within it."
-Sarah Lyall, The New York Times

"Mr. Pavone has written an outstanding book full of sociological detail and pulsing with the passions and prejudices of the times in which we live."
-Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal

"[A] politically attuned thriller. . . Pavone deploys signifiers of the contemporary culture wars to conjure a relentlessly polarized New York City, where race, class, and politics suffuse every interaction. Embracing a diverse cast of characters-including society ladies, defense contractors, and a Ukrainian super who spends his evenings on Grindr-the novel ultimately turns on a festering marriage, an ill-fated affair, and a business relationship gone sour, all of which combine to trap the 'unerringly patient and unfailingly nice' doorman in a cataclysm."
-The New Yorker

"This adrenaline-pumping thriller from bestseller Pavone delivers a lacerating, Tom Wolfe-worthy dissection of Manhattan society in the post-Covid era. . . Page-turning from the opening paragraph to its killer finale, the narrative combines noirish atmosphere with a sharp attunement to the particular depravities of ultrawealthy urbanites. Pavone's provocative look at the city that never sleeps will keep readers up well into the wee hours."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Chris Pavone has always been good, but this novel is way better than good. The kind of novel that wins book awards. Cynical, tender, sharp, dense, funny, and loaded with inside dope about how New York works (and how it doesn't). The Doorman is a Bonfire of the Vanities for the 21st century. He gives it to both sides of the culture wars, and with both smoking barrels."
-Stephen King

"The Doorman is a near-perfect blend of clever plotting, wicked social commentary, irresistible setting, truly memorable characters, and old-fashioned, page-turning fun. What a romp!"
-John Grisham

"The Doorman pits the privileged gentry of Manhattan against the serfs they fear will breach their moats and scale the walls of their high rise co-ops. Pavone's depiction of present day New York City is a callback to Bonfire of the Vanities, but his telling is too real to be satirical."
-Griffin Dunne, author of The Friday Afternoon Club