Book review from the Sun Sentinel:

‘New Couple in 5B’ a modern haunted house mystery with layers of suspense

By Oline Cogdill

Dark suspense has been a hallmark of best-seller Lisa Unger’s novels, delving into the fears that turn seemingly ordinary situations into frightening situations that can make one doubt what is reality or imagination.

Unger’s “The New Couple in 5B” uses the haunted house trope to examine a marriage, friendship, evil and even New York real estate in a plot that steadily builds, offering numerous well-placed misdirections that ramp up the suspense. “The New Couple in 5B” pays homage to Ira Levin’s “Rosemary’s Baby,” Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca” and myriad ghost stories. To that mix, Unger adds a smidgeon of the film “Gaslight” and the TV series “Only Murders in the Building.” Unger takes each of these aspects to create her own unique story.

Rosie and Chad Lowan are struggling New Yorkers. She had a best-seller a few years ago but that money has run out. Chad is an actor who’s landed a few parts in plays but keeps looking for that big break, even in a lucrative commercial. They spent their first year of marriage caring for Chad’s uncle, Ivan, who recently died. The couple is surprised that Ivan leaves them his luxury apartment in the historic Windermere building in the Murray Hill neighborhood. Although they can barely afford the monthly assessment, the apartment could sell for millions.

Still, their luck seems to be changing so the couple decides to stay to become “The New Couple in 5B.” Chad gets a role in what looks to be a long-running TV series. Rosie receives a lucrative contract to write a book wrapped around the lurid history of the Windermere, which includes numerous deaths, suicides and murders since it was constructed during the 1920s on the site of a burned church. The residents, most of whom have lived there for decades, readily welcome the couple, especially next-door neighbors Charles and Ella Aldridge, with whom they became friendly during Ivan’s illness.

But nothing is ever free. Ivan’s estranged daughter, Dana, didn’t even bother to see her father when he was dying, and now she’s threatening to sue the couple because she expected to inherit the apartment. The long-time doorman, Abi, never seems to leave, and, creepily, voice-activated intercoms in each apartment allow him to be called without using a phone or a buzzer. Cameras are all over the place.

Rosie’s anxiety mounts when she begins to see people who don’t exist. As Rosie researches the Windermere’s history, more deaths occur, as do other strange events. Rosie begins to wonder if the building is haunted, “some energy that encourages dark happenings … or broken people doing horrible things to each other.”

A glimpse at the lives of the couple who owned the apartment before Ivan enhances the plot. Rosie’s life and the building’s history are wrapped in a “helix of choice and chance.”

Modern haunted houses are a current trend in mystery fiction, using the fear factor to invigorate the locked-room mystery. While dire events happen away from the Windermere, its clutches reach across the city.

Unger keeps her plot off kilter as she alternates from making Rosie an unreliable narrator to a thoughtful, imaginative writer who is correct about her misgivings about the Windermere and its residents.

“The New Couple in 5B” is the Florida-based Unger’s 21st novel (22nd if you count her one novella) and continues her high standards for richly layered suspense.

Meet the author

Lisa Unger will be among the 10 authors featured during the Literary Feast, sponsored by the Broward Public Library Foundation to raise money for literacy programs. Unger (“The New Couple in 5B”) along with Alex DeMille (“Blood Lines”), Jonathan Santlofer (“The Lost Van Gogh”) and James R. Benn (“Proud Sorrows) will appear during LitLive’s free mystery fiction panel at 7:30 p.m. April 12 in the Horvitz Auditorium at NSU Art Museum, One East Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. The panel discussions also will include fiction beginning at 5:30 p.m. and nonfiction beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Visit bplfoundation.org/literary-feast for details on LitLive and the Night of Literary Feast on April 13.

This article was published in the Sun Sentinel here.