Bonnie Kistler offers an altered design on the closed room mystery plot as two women enter a corporate elevator on the 30th floor only to have it stall partway down. When the doors open at the lobby level one woman is alive but the other is dead from a gunshot wound. Two women, one gun, one body. Was it murder or suicide? Shay Lambert, the survivor, is cooperative when describing what happened but the police are skeptical as things don’t seem to add up. From this bang-bang of an opening, Kistler peels away layers of intrigue. Shay is a rags to riches story, yet the cops are doubtful on how she shifted from being financially broke to hired as a high profile corporate lawyer. The novel’s frantic pace accelerates as the company’s massive dirty secret comes to light. Kistler (a former lawyer) knows the law can be manipulated as her story has corporate leaders framing Shay. Luckily this can-do woman fights back despite being betrayed to the point where her life is in danger. Readers will quickly turn pages to discover what really happened inside that elevator and why.

Two women at the same law firm end up trapped in an elevator together. When they are freed only one is alive. Is it Suicide or murder?

This one starts with a serious bang, but then slowed down a bit too much for my liking. I was very invested in the mystery and I wanted to know what was going on but there was too much “other stuff”. There was a lot of legalese and business discussions that slowed down the story for me. You can’t skim over these parts because they are important to the plot.

“Here was the risk with fabrications. I’d been tripped up in a tangled web of my own weaving.”

The Cage comes out 2/15.

I don't know quite what I was expecting when I read the premise of this book but this wasn't it.

What I enjoyed:
The plot was interesting enough to keep going and make it to the end. I enjoyed the writing style and didn't feel like there were any major flaws with the characters that would make me dislike them.

What I disliked:
I felt like the timeline was all over the place, especially at the beginning. I had a hard time keeping up with the characters and their motivations. What I thought would be more of a "whodunit" driven plot ended up being very legal. And while the story did eventually come together, it just took A LOT OF STORY to get there, with half of it being legalese that I hardly understood.

Conclusion:
Interesting book, so many moving parts, too much legal talk.

As the blurb says, this one started off with a BANG - both literally and figuratively!

Two women, Lucy Barton-Jones, head of HR, and Shay Lambert, a newly hired corporate lawyer for fashion conglomerate Claudine de Martineau International, or CDMI, step into an elevator together on the 30th floor one cold February night. On the trip down, the lights go out, the elevator stalls, trapping both women, and at some point a shot rings out. Only one woman eventually emerges and the other is either a victim by her own hand … or the other woman’s.

What’s the truth? Well, you have a fifty-fifty chance of being right, so the fun is less about that answer and more about the path that gets you there. I felt the book makes enough intimations of where it’s heading that I wasn’t surprised by the ending.

For me, the typically burning question of the “who” wasn’t what was driving me through the pages. It was “why” and the “how” - the mystery and motive - behind CDMI’s bigwigs and why they were trying to frame one of these women for the other’s death. That, as my husband likes to say, is “the spicy meatball” that made this so enjoyable for me.

After hearing friends say that there was a lot of legalese and corporate talk in this, I was already expecting to have to No-Doze my way through this (no offense to my legal and corporate friends!) I’m not saying I didn’t struggle with the legal lingo, and I’m completely out of my depth when it comes to understanding the white collar world, but despite that I found this to be very engaging. It started strong, got a little bogged down and slow in the middle, then really ramped up the tension and intrigue in the final third.

Author Bonnie Kistler is a former lawyer, so her legal knowledge shines and adds authenticity to the story. If you like a slow-burn legal mystery/thriller with global intrigue, where you have to figure out who’s playing who, with an ever-changing upper hand, you might have fun with this. As a bonus, it has a clever epilogue that actually works!

Thanks to Harper Publishing, NetGalley and author Bonnie Kistler for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinions. It’s due for publication on February 15, 2022.

On a late Sunday, two women entered an elevator at work.

Lights go off.

When the power returns and the elevator gets down to the ground level, only one of them is alive.

Did Shay kill Lucy or did Lucy commit suicide?

This is the question The Cage is based on.

Shay Lambert can't believe what just happened to her. She is a lawyer who was working late. The dead woman's name was Lucy. She was the head of Human Resources. Shay tells the police, Lucy had a gun and Shay was trying to take the gun away so Lucy wouldn't hurt herself.

Is Lucy speaking the truth?

Read it to find out.

It was fun trying to figure out what was really happening. Was Shay an unreliable narrator or was she being set up?

I liked Shay. She was down on her luck, with a marriage that was pretty much done and she was just trying to survive. I began rooting for her and wanting her to win even if she was guilty (where was my conscience?).

I usually stay away from legal thrillers but this one kept my attention throughout.

Cliffhanger: No

4/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by Harper via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was an unique, engaging story that really seemed quite realistic! I thought the concept was fun, thrilling, chilling, and shocking. The writing stile was fantastic and brought what needed to keep me glued to the pages. Character development amazingly done, which made it easier to stay connected to the story! An unique spin on a locked room mystery, but not quite completely locked room! This is one you are going to have to read to understand all my review is saying, but I highly recommend you do so!

If you are into Legal Thrillers then this is the book for you. Lots of legal talk and process and situations . I liked the premise of this book and it has good pace in all its tenses. Slow where it needs to be and quick when it needs to be. This is definitely not a locked room mystery and I really enjoyed it.

Wrong place, wrong time?

The last two women at work that night enter the elevator on the 30th floor. One is Lucy, the HR director of CDMI - a fashion corporation. The other is Shay, a newly hired lawyer.

Something happens on the ride down to the lobby, when the doors open, one of them is dead.

This sets up the plot line for the novel. Who is responsible and what was their motive?

I was going a bit cross-eyed with all the legal jargon - mergers, law of unintended conquences, Wall Street, documents, contracts, etc. This was about as exciting as shuffling papers and then alphabetizing them!

I was expecting more of a twisty, tension filled read and while there are secrets revealed and motives divulged, all the legal eagle talk slowed the overall pace.

I did enjoy the beginning and the set-up, the first 25% drew me in and made for some good theories of what happened on that elevator. A fun buddy read with Jayme and Regina that gave me some early insight.

If you like a legal drama with some unsavory characters, this may be for you. Others have been thrilled with it, so check out all the reviews.

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say this cage is unlocked.

If you read the publisher synopsis, you may think this is a locked room mystery. Two women enter an elevator together, but only one comes out alive. That’s just the first chapter - of 34 - though. What follows is a roller coaster of a plot that at times reminded me of The Firm (which the synopsis also references), Orange is the New Black, and a hundred psychological thrillers with possibly-unreliable first-person female narrators.

Above all, this is a LEGAL thriller. There is a lot of legal talk. A lot of legal paperwork. A lot of legal situations. Legal legal legal. If these sentences bored you, your eyes will gaze over for a good half of this book.

Despite the plot being much broader and all over the place than I anticipated, I did find author Bonnie Kistler’s writing to be a cut above her peers. Some sections were so insightful that they felt more literary fiction than thriller, so I am looking forward to seeing what she writes next.

I had fun buddy reading this with some of my Goodreads pals (Jayme & Holly), and I think we all agree that a strong start got a little sluggish and convoluted as the pages turned. The epilogue was a nice surprise though!

3.5 stars

My thanks to the author and Amelia at Harper for the gifted copy to review via NetGalley. The expected US publication date of The Cage is February 15, 2022.

3.5 ⭐️

Human Resources director of CDMI, Lucy Barton Jones, and a new legal associate, Shay Barton, enter an elevator on the 30th floor of the Marketplace Towers, after hours on a Sunday evening.

Power is lost and a frantic call is made to 911.

But, when the elevator car reaches the lobby-one of the women is DOA.

MURDER or SUICIDE?

I expected a locked room mystery when I downloaded this title, based on that synopsis but although this story is SUSPENSEFUL, it is anything but a locked room mystery, I was expecting and hoping for!

What it is-a GREAT fit for readers who enjoy the RISE and FALL, of players in a corporate setting-characters who strive to outsmart and outmaneuver their opponents with no regard to who they might take down as they strive to make their way to the top.

Though clever, I found it a bit difficult to keep track of the names and titles of those in upper management of CDMI and those they surrounded themselves with to keep the status quo, and I found the legalese and Corporate shenanigans a bit too detailed for my taste at times, created an uneven pace.

But, the story DID move in a SURPRISING direction in the second half and actually had a very ENLIGHTENING epilogue. I am not always a fan of books wrapping up that way, but it definitely worked here.



I would like to thank Amelia Beckerman at HarperCollins Publishers for the gifted copy provided through NetGalley.
It was my pleasure to offer a candid review!

Two women get into an elevator on the 30th floor. Only one gets out of the elevator at ground level…

...because the other woman is dead.

Both women work in a Manhattan highrise at Claudine de Martineau International (CDMI). One is the human resources director. The other is one of the company’s lawyers.

Was the death in the elevator caused by murder? Or suicide?

There is an abundance of reasons to speculate, but it’s best to go in blind.

What I will say is that I was not expecting to LOVE this office/legal thriller as much as I did. I found it unputdownable and compelling, with more depth than I expected. It is smartly written by Bonnie Kistler, a former lawyer. The characters are multifaceted and interesting. I flew through this one because I couldn’t wait to see how it ended.

This is definitely not a locked room mystery, so don’t go into it expecting to spend the whole time in the elevator with these characters. The book goes way beyond that, and into many different directions.

Sure, there were some moments that seemed far fetched, but overall I found The Cage to be riveting, taut, eloquently written, and scary in the sense that it seems feasible that most of the plot points in the book could really happen.

Suspenseful and easy to get lost in all the way through the revealing epilogue. This would also make a great movie!

4.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you to Harper for providing an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Expected Publication Date: 2/15/22.

Review also posted at: https://bonkersforthebooks.wordpress.com

#TheCage #NetGalley
An interesting take on a locked door murder mystery. The plot is clever and the suspense of what happened with have you hanging on until the very end!

Two women who work for the same fashion designer are working late. One works in HR, one is a corporate attorney; they both board the same elevator to leave late in the evening. Somewhere between the 30th and the first floor, one of winds up dead. Suicide? Murder? The Cage takes the locked room mystery to the next level in this claustrophobic thriller