Meet the new couple of 5B

July 3, 2024 by Cathy Salustri

Lisa Unger The new couple in 5B offers the reader a technical approach to the thriller genre. You may sleep after reading it, but maybe not well.
Photography by Cathy Salustri

I don’t know about you, but every now and then I feel like everyone is watching me. Nothing is what it seems. And, well, maybe I can’t sleep well because of these feelings.

When I do, I pick up a Lisa Unger book. Sure, that’s fine while I’m reading by the pool or lounging on the porch, but at 2 a.m.? Not so much.

When it comes to truly scary movies (think Rosemary’s Babythe second iteration of The Brilliantand one of the Fifty shades of Grey (movies), I have no objection to them. But horror novels (anything by Jeff Strand or Grady Hendrix is immediately accepted as a “yes, please!”) and their less explicit cousins are too alluring to ignore.

Lisa Unger’s latest film is definitely not a horror film – at least not a horror film in the same vein as House of the sick Or How to Sell a Haunted House —but it’s certainly not scary, if you follow. The new couple in 5BUnger has found a balance between his The Last Ghost Girl (abjectly terrifying, especially if you’re a woman) and Secluded cabin that sleeps six (terrifying, but not abjectly).

Unger, a writer from Pinellas, takes readers inside a tiny Manhattan apartment where Rosie and Chad Lowan have inherited the apartment from Chad’s uncle. The apartment is far beyond what they could afford on their own, and for Rosie, a novelist struggling with mental health issues, it’s a godsend.

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At least at first. Sure, a doorman is a reassuring security feature. But… why is he there all the time? Plus, yes, it’s nice to have an intercom to reach him if you need him, but… it feels like he’s always listening. It’s like Alexa, but as the novel progresses, you realize it’s more like Alexa with intention.

Chad—all I can say is that he lives up to his name, and then some—is away a lot, so Rosie spends a lot of time alone in the apartment. Well, not alone, not exactly… but the fact is that she has time to work on her next book, which happens to be about all the grotesque murders that have happened in the building over the years. Maybe not the ideal state of mind for a woman with a history of hallucinations.

No spoilers here

To write more than that would spoil the rest of this delightful book. Suffice to say, things are not what they seem and everything is too much of what it seems. Unger has once again crafted a story that is not so horrific that wimps like me won’t read it, but terrifying enough that at times I considered putting the book in the freezer.

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