# Elevator Pitch # Netgalley
This was rather different to what I normally read. At first I wasn’t convinced it just seemed a little unrealistic. However I read on. I was truly shocked and surprised how it took a turn with a real twist to this plot. Now I am hooked. I couldn’t read the pages quickly enough this twist and turns come thick and fast, you just genuinely do not know what to expect. Which is what I like about books, and that the storyline could actually happen. Definitely recommend you read this. You will be so sorry if you don’t

This thriller is an interesting twist on the fear thriller - a seemingly random elevator saboteur in New York starts causing lifts to malfunction leading to deaths. Shutting all the lifts causes chaos and it will fall to a journalist with a secret past and two detectives to work out who and why. Barclay writes tight, well plotted thrillers all hinging on a simple premise and then expanding to bring in the characters. Always a thrilling read and this latest novel is no exception. Recommended.

This is Linwood Barclay at his best - having used his great knowledge of middle America he now takes us to the BIG CITIES literally with a bang .

New Yorkers are used to living in a city where all the buildings go one way - UP and the only way to navigate them is to use the elevators .
What would happen if they all just stopped ?
Who would live ?
Who would die ?
And why ?

This is a fast paced thriller , full of well written characters and suspense . Highly entertaining , the chapters are short but full of content and action …… but most of all touches of humour that bring people to life .
There are many parties to the book - The Flyovers , The Politicians and the Police investigations into the murders .
What connects them ? Is there a connection ? Is it an act of Terrorism ?
It shows how reliant we have become on mobile phones - how absorbing they are , how to keep in touch and to keep up to date with what is happening around us..
Who has the motive and opportunity to bring the cities elevators to a stop ?
Only by reading this great book will you find out .

I was given an ARC of this book by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

There are 63,000 passenger elevators in New York City. What could possibly go wrong?

Linwood starts off his latest novel with a plunge as the reader is launched into a very busy and crowded New York. The tension starts from the first page as you are thrust through short chapters and as each scene quickly unfolds you do not know what is going to happen next.

There are tons of content in this thriller, there is no padding and as you wade through this avalanche of data it becomes clear Linwood’s writing quality is spot on.

Elevator Pitch is a plot based thriller with an abundance of characters thrown in. The head count is very high but each character is concisely introduced no matter how small or large a part they play in this story. New York is a very busy city and this novel really conveys the buzz on the street.

Linwood explores the everyday threat of terrorism to the citizens of New York. Threats from the Middle East like ISIS plus home grown activists like the Flyovers. Henry Olsen explained the concept behind Flyovers in 2017 when he wrote…

Although originally coined by a citizen of flyover country, the term has become a pejorative description of the interior states of the USA and is largely attributed to coastal and liberal Americans who – in more ways than one – are said to ‘look down’ on these lands and their peoples during their high altitude journeyings from one fashionable seaboard metropolis to another.

...Linwood has little snips of subtle humour sprinkled throughout his story, for example…
“But isn’t that exactly what you have reduced the so-called coasters to? A cliche? Sushi-eating, latte-drinking, gluten-avoiding, Prius-driving elites?”

Barbara sat back on the bench. Oh, no, she thought. She’s gone to the dark side. She’s working for Facebook.

But Twitter was not typically where one posted photos of friends. It was for mouthing off, something Barbara did plenty of.

...I loved how Elevator Pitch is quite topical, it includes real past events and has many, many social observations. I loved the realism of this story and found the threat of everyday terrorism the man in the street has to live with, very engaging. Elevator Pitch showed just how much some people use a mobile phone and how it has become an integral part of their lives. This was quite shocking and a sad but true reflection on how society has developed with many people so absorbed and attached to their mobile phones. They may be connected but can miss out on the really important things happening around them.

I loved reading Elevator Pitch and found it a great, entertaining and thrilling book. I think that Linwood is at the top of his game and that Elevator Pitch is an OUTSTANDING read that gets 5 stars from me.

I am never getting on an elevator ever again. Never. I have never been a huge fan of elevators, but now I am even much less. As one of the characters of the novel said: “Take the stairs.”

New York City is built upward so elevators are a very important part of it. What would happen if you stopped all the elevators in one of the biggest cities in the world from running? Chaos, death, and panic. And Linwood Barclay portrays them perfectly in his new gripping novel, ELEVATOR PITCH. In three days, three elevators disasters cause multiple deaths so Richard Hadley, the city’s mayor, decides to stop all the elevators until they have been checked out. And while the entire city is on hold, an activist group called Flyover is planting bombs in the biggest cities around the United States. Are the two events connected? And how are they linked to the brutal murder of an elevator repairman?

What a rollercoaster of a read! Fast-paced, twisty, and engrossing, this novel made me hold my breath on more than one occasion. Sabotages, terror attacks, political scandals… the author knows how to keep the reader engaged. The story is told from multiple points of views, from the mayor trying to avoid criticism and scandal to the journalist who likes to portray him as the forever bad guy on her newspaper; from the police detective with PTSD who is trying to solve a murder and to prove to his colleague that he can do his job to the young woman who wants to impress her mother. Also, we get a front seat inside the sabotaged elevators and you can almost feel the fear of the people trapped inside. The tension (and my anxiety) during these moments was very high.

Linwood Barclay wrote a claustrophobic, suspenseful, and terrific novel that will surely give me nightmare and, yet, I couldn’t put down!

I’m a huge Linwood Barclay fan, more so since I met him at Harrogate and found him to be an absolute gentleman. So I always knew I was going to want to read Elevator Pitch. I love that word play in the title, don’t you? There’s always a bit of humour worked into a Barclay story, irrespective of how suspenseful it is, and gosh this one is chock full of suspense.

Oddly enough, it isn’t the first elevator story I have read this year, Megan Golding’s The Escape Room also had bad things happening to people in elevators, but these are, of course, two very different stories.

Elevator Pitch is first and foremost a strongly plotted, crackingly well-told story. It has characters you want to root for, whether you belong to the generation that identifies with our protagonist, journalist and commentator, Barbara or her daughter, Arla, just embarking on her first job.

Barclay takes the New York vista with its tall and imposing high tech buildings, all glass and steel, and shows us what it means to have to rely on one piece of technology to make them work. For without elevators to keep the buildings occupants flowing, these places are just useless hunks of masonry.

It starts one Monday morning, without warning. Four people get into an elevator and all perish when it malfunctions and goes into plummeting freefall. Then the following day, there is another, deeply gruesome event in which a woman is killed in the most macabre accident.

In a city that is sadly no stranger to acts of terrorism, the old adage of ‘once is happenstance, twice coincidence’, simply does not fly. The Mayor of New York, Richard Wilson Headley, rumoured to be interested in political advancement beyond the city, finds himself in the unenviable position of having to explain these incidents to the public and to try and re-assure them of their continuing safety.

Detective Jerry Bourque and his partner, Lois Delgado of the NYPD are investigating the murder of an unknown man on the High Line, way above the NYC sidewalks. Someone has gone to great lengths to hide this man’s identity, but is it connected to the elevator deaths?

Then there’s the ‘Flyover Group’ a bunch of malcontents who despise the big city dwellers for their money and corruption as they fly from coast to coast over, as they see it, the little people, the people whom, the Flyovers contend, are the ones who really contribute to the culture of the great country of the USA. Their leader, Eugene Clement, just happens to be in town with his wife, ostensibly to celebrate their anniversary. But when a bomb goes off and responsibility is claimed by someone claiming to be inspired by the Flyovers, all attention is directed to them.

Barclay pulls together a compelling cast of very well drawn characters to fuel the tension that comes from a deathly, high stakes, claustrophobic setting in which ordinary people are pawns in the hands of a ruthless killer or killers.

As Barbara, no fan of the Mayor, piles the pressure on at press conferences, Headley is forced to order all elevators shut down until they can be checked and a public relations nightmare ensues.

Short, fast paced chapters help to ramp up the tension and the body count just goes up and up as the reader tries to work out who has the motive and the opportunity to put such a deadly plan into action. A brilliant final scenario lends a sharpness and breathtaking edge to the denouement, which is both shocking and surprising.

Verdict: Suspenseful, claustrophobic and gripping, Elevator Pitch is an intense thrill ride on a rollercoaster that twists and turns until you’re not sure which way it’s safe to turn. Highly recommended read from a master storyteller.

I literally squealed with excitement at the opportunity to read and review this! This is a huge deal for me, Ive been a Linwood Barclay fan for some time and some of his books were my first venture away from romance. I Bleeding loved this book, but i wont be getting in any elevators any time soon - not many people like them at the best of times and this just chills the reader to the core.



On Monday a seemingly random elevator accident occurs, with four people dead - its awful but accidents do happen, so when Tuesday rolls around and another one happens, sometimes coincidences are not coincidence at all. With the city thrown into chaos and elevators out of action - who on earth is doing this? Is it linked to the explosions that have been occurring?



We follow the story from several different people, a journalist, the police & a random other person. We see as they all work alongside each other but separately trying to discover what is attempting to bring the city to a standstill.



This was gripping, thrilling and down right bloody chilling. I knew i would adore it, and even when i felt poorly with a shocking headache and my eyes were tired - i had to read more. This book literally deserves all the hype it has had and more!

Set in New York so you can visualise the terrain and buildings which keeps you reading. Good strong characters especially the women.
There are several threads to the story line which all come together at the end. Have to say I did guess the outcome but still a good read.

If being in a lift scares you then this book will terrify you !!
It starts one Monday morning when 4 people step into a lift and it goes up and to various floors they don't want then goes all way up and very quickly all the way down resulting in 3 immediate deaths and one slightly later
Then another lift goes beserk and results in even more deaths then finally a third lift door opens and the couple step in to nothing
The mayor has no choice but to stop all elevators in the city which means chaos and lots of people dying whilst climbing the stairs
But who would do something like this? And why?
What has the mayor got to hide?
A scintillating ride of a book not to be missed

This is a very silly but very enjoyable thriller. Somebody is hacking into the elevator system in prestigious skyscrapers in New York and death and mayhem send the city into a panic.

We have the usual stock characters - a Mayor who is venal and intend on re-election, a son he treats badly, a hard bitten women reporter who constantly writes to expose his father, said reporter has a daughter from whom she is estranged. It is all there. When the battered body of an elevator technician is found in the city it is pretty clear that this murder is linked to the elevator attacks - the detective in charge of the murder is suffering from, PTSD after accidentally causing the death of a civilian in a shooting.  
It all builds up to a big denoument when the said detective is cured of his PTSD by a shocking incident...all a bit too simplistic for me. The finale is mayhem with a finish at the top of a skyscraper with gaping lift shafts and a bomb and is pure theatre. I can see it on the screen and would not be surprised if that is where it ends up

.Fun and mindless.

Thank you for the advanced copy of The Elevator. Unfortunately I didn't read past the first 2 chapters as it wasnt what I expected and not really my type of book. I struggled to get into the characters.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I read it from cover to cover in a couple of sittings, it is a real page turner. The storyline was engaging and I loved the twists and turns. The finish was nail biting and not what I expected. All in all a great book and definitely recommended.

What a brilliant book but, whatever you do ,do not let anyone with a fear of lifts read this . There are 2 cases of elevators going wrong and people dying in each of them, one of them a Russian scientist leading to worries about assassination as she was going to apply for asylum . Following this a lift engineer is found after being beaten to a pulp and having his finger tips cut off to avoid identification . The Mayor of NY , Richard Headley has links to both buildings affected and has to get all elevators stopped until they have been checked out , this does not go down well with the general public . There is due to be a Grand Opening Party at a newly built Tower , which is the tallest in NY at 98 storeys and the elevators are checked and all is OK , so what can go wrong ? Read and find out . Throughout all this a journalist Barbara , who is critical of the Mayor warns him it appears to be personal to him . It transpires there was some history between them many years earlier , but just what? Is this why she has been critical of him ? A definite good read .

My thanks to HQ for an eARC via NetGalley of Linwood Barclay’s latest thriller, ‘Elevator Pitch’, in exchange for an honest review.

I have read a number of Barclay’s novels over the years and so was quite confident that this would deliver in terms of plot and characterisation.

It begins on a Monday as four people enter an elevator in a Manhattan office building and are puzzled by it failing to stop at their requested floors. It reaches the top and then plummets to the bottom of the shaft. A shocking opening.

It appears to be a random tragedy until the next day when there is another elevator malfunction and then again another on Wednesday. The city is soon in chaos as clearly these incidents are not coincidental accidents. Are they part of a homegrown or international terrorist plot or something else?

Meanwhile, two NYPD detectives are investigating the murder of an unidentified man whose fingertips have been removed. In another strand Barbara, a journalist known for her probing articles on local politicians, recognises one of Monday’s victims as a young woman who had interned at her newspaper. These individuals and others are seeking answers as well as dealing with personal issues linked to their pasts.

Lifts (aka elevators) always make me a little nervous and I am certain that I am not alone. Barclay uses this anxiety to craft this thriller and build up the tension for its powerful climax.

I found this a highly engaging read that provided plenty of thrills and was hard to put down. I read the majority of it in a single sitting.

Linwood Barclay. A new release. You don't need a review, just go and buy it, there is no way that you will be disappointed.

Barclay tells a thrilling tale, engaging the reader from the off and does not release the reader until the end... sometimes not even then.

If you know of Linwood Barclay then you will know the quality you are getting,.if you don't, strap in, you're about to lose your sleep.

Elevator Pitch is written by one of my favourite authors. I have loved the earlier books but I did struggle a little with this one. Too many characters confused me and I found hard to keep track. I continued as I was intrigued and certainly curios as to how the plot would unfold. The last few chapters where there weren't so many characters involved were brilliant.

Absolutely brilliant as expected. I love Linwood Barclays books. I think I’ll be weary off elevators from now on lol. Would highly recommend this book , you won’t be disappointed

An elevator accident may be more than it seems…

Never having read anything by Linwood Barclay before I wasn’t quite prepared for the effective Hitchcock like plotting and delivery in Elevator Pitch. There’s a build up of tension in the story that is actually quite filmic and visual that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Having lived in Manhattan and worked around New York for a short while, I found the setting described perfectly so that I felt there was an authenticity to what I hope will only ever be a fictional situation!

The narrative is exciting with what seems at first to be diverse and separate strands woven together cleverly to create a very satisfying novel. Elevator Pitch is a deceptive book too as Linwood Barclay feeds in diversions that wrong foot the reader providing surprises along the way. I really liked the manner in which I found out details at the same time as Barbara, Jerry and Lois. Linwood Barclay’s style is brisk and pacy so that the reader is swept along in events making for an exciting read.

One of the greatest successes of Elevator Pitch for me was the characterisation. Jerry Bourque’s back story gave him a humanity that elevated him (if you’ll pardon the pun) above the usual maverick, world weary, detectives of so many crime thrillers I have read. Here, instead, is a man with heart and a conscience. I’m hoping there will be more involving him in future books. I found the family dynamics between Richard Headley and his son Glover both enlightening and very sad. The effect of a parent on a child – of whatever age – can be deeper than any might imagine. I thoroughly appreciated the feisty Barbara, especially when I was afforded an insight into her softer and more emotional side.

Thematically, there’s much to mull in Elevator Pitch and once the book has been read as a fast paced thriller, I think it would reward a second perusal to concentrate on the concepts of power, politics, corruption, PTSD, revenge, terrorism, relationships and society. Having said that, I thought the premise for the novel was possibly more than enough for me on its own. I am claustrophobic so avoid lifts as much as I can. Elevator Pitch has not left me any more inclined to enjoy their enclosed spaces!

I really did enjoy Elevator Pitch and it has persuaded me that I’ve left it too long to discover Linwood Barclay as a writer. This won’t be my last reading of his books, but I think it was a very good place to start.

SPOILER FREE REVIEW!
So I’ve finished this advanced readers ebook just in time to see Linwood Barclay on tour next week for the release - and I wasn’t disappointed!
If you’re looking for an easy read thriller that will really make you think about things you might take for granted, this is it!
However, if you’re already scared or cautious of riding elevators (lifts here in the UK) then maybe give just this one a miss.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Being a Barclay virgin (I know, I know!) and reading the synopsis I couldn’t wait to start this book. I was immediately gripped with the first elevator ‘accident’ and elsewhere the discovery of a dead man, which police officers Jerry Bourque and Lois Delgado attend. Then come more elevator ‘accidents’ and the connection of the dead man being an elevator engineer. Set in New York, the story has quite a few characters; Mayor Headley and his son Glover, mayoral aids Valerie Langdon and Chris Vallins, journalist Barbara and her daughter Arla oh, and also in the mix a terrorist cell. Overall I enjoyed this book and completely got the ending wrong by going down the wrong path, but that only made it more enjoyable. I will certainly be reading more of this author but I think it will be a while before I use an elevator again! Thank you to HQ and NetGalley for an advanced copy in return for my review.