I've been sitting on writing this review for a a few days as I'm feeling torn about this one.

This new thriller by Lucy Foley (pub day February 22, 2022) has some major high points and a number of flip points for me.

I really loved the Parisian setting and influence in the story. I found the writing very atmospheric and I could totally picture the creepy, dark apartment and the unique attributes of each of the characters. Everyone is shady, unsavory and full of secrets (love that!). The twists towards the end were pretty good and I didn't figure them out. I found the pacing started strong, slowed a bit in the middle but picked back up at the end. I read the last 30% in one sitting!

These good things aside, I felt there were a few plot pieces that were entirely unnecessary. Maybe they were intended as a red herring but looking back there was zero purpose. While there are a number of characters, I wanted more of a back story from a few of them. One in particular is written as this evil brother which stems from his childhood, but it's never elaborated on or comes into play with the rest of the story. I liked the ending but wanted more, especially from the epilogue.

All in all, good read. However I expect I won't remember many of the details too long from now. Good enough that I'll still read more from this author!

I very much enjoyed this book because you have six different perspectives and all at one point or another seem suspicious. It was not a book that was easy to figure out and had me guessing until the last minute! I will definitely be reading more by this author in the future.

Lucy Foley is a big fan of putting a bunch of people together, everyone with a secret, and watching the disaster unfold. Multiple narratives, every character is important, and their connection is shocking. Again, Foley has managed to stump and shock me with her twists.
Prepare yourself for a lesson in French dialect. I’m thrilled to learn a new swear in a foreign language, and loved how Foley keeps it authentic with conversation jumping from French and English. All the little nooks and crannies, hidden around Paris are explored. I felt like I was back in the city I had visited when I was eighteen. I could almost smell it.
The book was suspenseful and thrilling and will keep you guessing. You will think you know what happened to Ben, but you aren’t even close. There is so much more to the apartment then it’s location.

The Paris Apartment follows Jess who is escapes London to visit his bother Ben in Paris. When she gets to the building where Ben lives he can't find him, thinking that maybe left for the night she breaks into his apartment so she has a place to stay for the night. In the morning she gets a feeling that something bad has happened to Ben and starts asking the neighbors if anyone has seen or heard from Ben. When she starts searching for him she still discovering more secrets, who really are these people? Is there anyone that she can trust?

I really enjoyed this book, it has multiple points of views which I thought brought the story together well.
There was a lot of twists I did not see coming, I did find that the story did take a while to pick up and get really suspenseful, but once I finished the first half of the book I could not put it down during the second half.
If you are looking for a book with lots of twists these might be a great book for you!

I would like to thankNetgalley and the publisher for an advanced ARC. .

The premise is promising and the setting is excellent but the story and characters didn’t hook me. I found myself not caring what happened to any of them and whether Jess found Ben. This one was not for me. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The Paris Apartment is about a woman named Jess visiting her brother Ben in Paris to escape her old life. But when she arrives to his apartment, Ben is gone despite having just called her on the phone. After a few days, Jess seeks to find her brother through all possible means, even by interacting with others in the apartment, who she suspects all have something to do with her brothers disappearance.

Lucy Foley has always written her books through the use of multiple perspectives. In this book we have 5 perspectives: The socialite – The nice guy – The alcoholic – The girl on the verge – The concierge. Through their chapters in the book, we learn more about their motivations and it intrigues the reader to continue to learn more about them. Another thing Foley does well in this book is show us the French experience- I felt I was transported back to Paris that I haven't visited in many years. The bits of French thrown in and descriptions of all the eerie location really add to the story. You can tell there is something sinister about this story, but Foley doesn't give it all away at once. She does a slow reveal to keep you on the edge of your seat.

The only negative I can say is that it did go on a bit too long at times. The main character Jess too is definitely reckless and clueless at times to a fault, but that is her personality. I overall enjoyed it immensely and also recommend Foley's other books.

If you are a fan of Mystery Thrillers and a fan of puzzles, this book is for you.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing an advance readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

THE PARIS APARTMENT was a slow burn suspense that really built until the last 70ish pages. i’m tough on thrillers, and i think i finally realized this trope does not work for me. the claustrophobic feeling of being locked into one building/setting and the very drawn out suspense usually doesn’t pay off for me (especially since i usually figure out the twist #thrillersnob 🥲) but i know lots of people enjoy it! many of you asked, so for reference i dnf’d THE HUNTING PARTY and loved THE GUEST LIST. this falls somewhere in between for me, but beware that it’s nothing like TGL. this one wasn’t great, wasn’t a DNF, but might be forgettable.

THE PARIS APARTMENT follows Jess, a newly unemployed sister who decides to escape London and visit her brother in Paris. when she gets to his super posh apartment, he’s no where to be found. as she starts looking into where he could be, she discovers tons of secrets not only about the other apartment tenants, but about her brother as well 👀 will she be able to find him?

this book had multiple POVs and characters which i loved. the main character was strong and determined and the very last twist was good, but after awhile each chapter felt the same. overall, i just needed MORE earlier on to keep me engaged.

as long as you’re a fan of locked door thrillers and similar books (and ready for a slow burn), you will enjoy it so take my “unpopular” opinion with a grain of salt 🖤🤓

a big thanks to William Morrow for the #gifted ARC!

Lucy Foley has laid claim to her corner of the murder-mystery genre with her "locked room mysteries" including The Hunting Party and The Guest List. Foley has cemented her place as a contender once again with The Paris Apartment.

Lucy Foley's newest book is sure to be another hit! This time the setting is Paris, and the uber-rich people that live in an apartment building. When Jess shows up to visit her half brother, he is missing. The people who make up the residences swear to no knowing what happened to him, but Jess won't back down. She keeps digging, even though it seems Ben was about to discover something dangerous. Is someone determined to prevent Jess from doing the same thing?
The twist on this one is CRAZY!!

Jess needs to get away from London and heads to Paris to stay with her brother. The siblings are not necessarily close, so when Jess gets to Paris and Ben is not there to let her in, she is more angry than concerned. Once she makes it into his very luxurious apartment building, she quickly realizes that something is wrong among the oddly insular residents. Turns out there is something VERY wrong and the tension quickly ratchets up. Told from different character's perspectives, each of whom has secrets and may or may not be telling the truth, and with enough twists to keep any thriller fans happy, this is a book to recommend to people looking for a quick and exciting read.

Lucy Foley is one of my favorite thriller authors and this book did not disappoint. It takes an unreliable character (my favorite) and puts her in the middle of an impossible situation. Who can she trust? Is her brother dead or just messing with her? And who are all these strange people in his building, all with secrets and hidden motives? Loved this book and have been telling all my customers about it.

First of all thank you to Killer Crime Club, NetGalley and the publish for an advanced digital copy of The Paris Apartment.

I was so excited to read this. I love books set around a mysterious apartment building but this book did not hit the mark for me. This book is about Jess who shows up in Paris to stay with her brother but when she gets there her brother is missing. As Jess tries to unlock the mystery of what happened to her brother a bigger mystery surrounding the tenants and the apartment building unfold

This book so definitely was a slow burn, giving you just enough to keep you going. Although I wasn’t able to guess the ending I just didn’t find it to be a wow factory

All opinions in this review are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley, William Morrow and the author for the opportunity to read an ARC of this title. An honest review was requested but not required.

This is an atmospheric - almost gothic, but not quite - mystery/suspense thriller set in Paris. That being said, most of the action is limited to a sort of apartment building which at one time must have been a small hotel or mansion. Except for mention of a couple landmarks and ever-prevalent French language, it could have been a seamy part of any European city.

Jess is easy to like, the sort of scrappy, flawed, frustrated heroine who makes relatable mistakes and bumbles around trying to figure out what's going on and putting things together veeeeery sloooowly. The rest of the characters, not so much. None of the building's residents, from the spooky concierge, to the alcoholic a-hole Antoine, to the icy, haughty Sophie Meunier, to too-good-to-be-true Nick, to creepy Mimi, to Jess's manipulative brother Ben, are not likable at all. I guess we're supposed to like Ben, because he is Jess's brother, but he struck me as a smarmy jerk. The only characters I was really rooting for were Benoit (Sophie's whippet) and Ben's nameless cat, who as another reviewer pointed out, Jess neglected to feed during the entirety of her sojourn in Ben's apartment.

The apartment building itself was practically a character. Definitely claustrophobic, with a dark gloomy vibe, the place must have absolutely reeked of cigarettes since every single character (except Sophie, maybe?) was portrayed as constantly smoking. Ugh. I've never really been all that enamored of Paris as a destination; my several trips into France while I lived in Europe were not hugely enjoyable and left me with an (unfortunate) impression of French people as inveterate snobs who resent the presence of tourists, American tourists in particular, and who do not hesitate to express their distaste for these étrangers repoussants. This book definitely reinforced my reluctance to ever set foot in Paris.

Mystery-wise, I felt the book got off to a sort of slow start. It did pick up around 75% but the first half was much more a series of character studies than any real investment in the mystery plot. The book was good overall but I preferred The Guest List. I'm pretty hard to please when it comes to the mystery/suspense/thriller genre, though, so please take that with a big fat grain of salt.

Everyone is a suspect! Paris is the setting in this thriller where family members all have a motive, and good ones, for murdering one of the son's friends, who has been invited to move into their apartment building.
The writing is intriguing and what makes this book especially mysterious is that it lingers well after you have finished it. The many twists and turns played out against current sociological issues keep you guessing. At times, the characters' actions can get a bit muddled but the compelling story kept me going and going.

A twisty locked room mystery, full of unreliable narrators and dysfunctional families, describes Foley's latest title. The setting is an old and somewhat crumbling apartment building in Paris. Within the walls lives a seemingly disparate and very secretive group of people. Their world is rocked when Ben, a journalist friend of one of the long-time residents who is also living there, disappears. His sister Jess, fleeing her own troubles in England to go stay with her half-brother Ben, discovers that he is missing. Her efforts to find her brother lead her through the streets of Paris. Foley's descriptions of the city's well-known sights juxtaposed with a dark underworld provide a perfect backdrop to what is happening in the apartment building. The many loose ends are expertly tied up as the book closes. A very satisfying read from Lucy Foley.

Thanks to William Morrow and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this pre-pub title.

2.5, rounded up. This is the first Lucy Foley mystery I've read; it's choppy, but I was able to read it quickly. While the mystery was engrossing, I'm a little offended by how opaque the writing is--it feels like she's trying to overexplain to her readers--"I am Character. Here are my Traits. Here are all of my Feelings." It took some of the thrill out of the story.

Regardless, it's entertaining enough. If you've enjoyed her books in the past, you'll likely enjoy the plot in this one too.

Jess is running away from a bad situation hoping to find a place to start anew in Paris with her brother Ben. When she arrives at his apartment he's nowhere to be found and his disappearance is causing her to wonder if something more dire happened to him. A voice message left by him on her phone at first seems just "odd" but as she listens to it more, she begins to worry. Then there are the other residents of the apartment who she can't tell if they are just being rude or if they are hiding something they may know about her brother. Jess thinks she has found an ally to trust in helping her solve the mystery, Ben's old college mate who also lives in the apartment. He helps her reach out to the police since he's fluent in French. The police have their own hands full with riots going on in the city, as well as, the perception that some adult disappearances are the result of the individual choosing not to be found. The story has many different points of views .The reader is given a peak into each apartment dwellers thoughts and a brief glimpse into the secrets they hold, enough to make you suspect everyone until the dramatic end. Although the beginning was slow and at times jumpy between each character's point of view, it later starts to flow better into a crazy twisted ending.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC copy.

Somehow both predictable AND has twists I didn't fully see coming. Some of the timelines got a little confusing here and there, so not a total potato chip book. Not too many dumb decisions by our main character Jess, which is great! If you liked The Guest List, I think you'll enjoy this one too!

When Jess needs a quick exit, she literally has no one to turn to but her half-brother Ben, a journalist. Once she arrives at his remarkably posh apartment late at night, though, there's no sign of him. Just a bleach stain on the floor and a smear of blood on his cat. She searches desperately for answers, but is thwarted by the language barrier and stonewalled by the building's other residents: angry drunk Antoine, sheltered Mimi, haughty Sophie. Even Ben's pal Nick has secrets. Did Ben's latest story pull him in too deep? The cast of unreliable narrators slowly unveil the twisted truth.

I couldn’t put down this down. This is one of the best books I’ve read in quite awhile. There were plot twists that were well thought out and executed. I especially liked the ending.