It started on a Monday. The headline read, "Four people dead in an elevator accident in New York City." That's all it was, an accident, right? Until, on Tuesday, it happens again in another Manhattan skyscraper. Two random elevator tragedies in the same week. What are the chances? Until Wednesday comes and a third elevator catastrophe plunges New York, one of the most vertical cities in the world, into utter chaos. Who is behind these terrorist acts? Why are they doing it? What do these deadly acts of sabotage have to do with the fingerless body found on the High Line?
Linwood Barclay's ELEVATOR PITCH is an intriguing novel with a thrilling start, but the plot and action seemed to flatten as the book progressed. It is definitely a compelling premise, and the execution in this book is entertaining, but somewhere in the middle, the energy wavered. There was a significant red herring offered in the book, which was a bit too obvious to take seriously. And a couple coincidences that were a bit too convenient to be believable.
Barclay presents a large cast of characters, some of which don't interact through most of the book. It became a bit challenging to keep tabs on what each character was doing as well as their connection to the overall plot. Even with this large cast, the primary players in the book were well-defined and interesting. Each character was flawed with their own secrets that linked them all together.
Although the pace of the book drops off in the middle, the ending does bring some redemption to the book. It pulls the many plot threads together with an explosive result that is satisfying. Overall, ELEVATOR PITCH was an entertaining read with a compelling start and a decent ending, but it would have been nice to a more consistent pace through the novel.