The Beresford

The Beresford apartment building, the locale for this subpar crime thriller set in an unnamed British city from Carver (the Detective Pace series), has a dark past, including some suspicious deaths. In the present, it’s known for the high turnover rate of its tenants, and for offering quality living spaces with low rents and short-term leases. Those benefits come with a cost, as for some reason the building makes its otherwise nonviolent occupants homicidal. One of them, Abe Schwartz, a book-loving young man, strangles one of his neighbors, an artist, though he can’t understand why he does so. Focused on figuring out how to dispose of the corpse in his apartment, Abe researches methods online with his own personal convenience in mind (“Like all good millennials, he wanted the greatest possible outcome for the least amount of effort”). His concealing the murder doesn’t end the violence, however. The reveal of the source of the Beresford’s homicidal influence disappoints, and despite the frequent bloodshed, there’s neither suspense nor chills. Readers interested in a plot centering on a possibly murderous building will find Riley Sager’s Lock Every Door more rewarding. (Nov.)