Publishers Weekly
03/28/2022
The tepid latest art-tangential mystery from Shapiro (The Collector’s Apprentice) revolves around the tenants of a Boston-area storage space. Rose, the manager of Metropolis, a castle-like facility near MIT, takes kickbacks from those who illegally live in their units. Then there’s a disastrous accident on the facility’s elevator. The who and why don’t come out until the end. In the aftermath, owner Zach, a rudderless yuppie, goes into foreclosure, and the insurance company auctions off everything that’s left. Live-in tenants include Marta, a PhD student from Venezuela who’s in the country illegally; Serge, a troubled photographer; and Jason, a lawyer and whistleblower who, having lost his high-powered job, now works out of Metropolis. Liddy, married to a nasty real estate mogul, also pays Rose for the privilege of setting up a shrine to the children her jealous husband sent away to boarding school. Jason agrees to take on Marta’s case, and Liddy, too, decamps to Metropolis, after she bonds with Marta and decides to leave her husband. Meanwhile, Zach discovers scads of Serge’s photos, which he believes he can profit from, and Rose’s family situation becomes desperate. With flat characterization and a predictable plot, Shaprio plods toward a happy ending. This lacks the frisson of the author’s earlier books. (May)
From the Publisher
An ingeniously plotted hybrid social/suspense novel . . . [Shapiro] takes her time loading the bases, and in the last inning, she hits it out of the park.”—Shelf Awareness
“Metropolis has all the elements I love in a novel: fascinating characters, a pace that crackles with tension, and a deeper message that will resonate with everyone. Once again, B. A. Shapiro weaves a unique and riveting tale.”—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of I Know a Secret
“A rich and gripping journey through intersecting lives, a nuanced exploration of characters who share nothing in common—but almost everything too. Inventive and immersive, it’s a page-turner of novel that will also make you want to slow down and soak it all in.”—Lou Berney, Edgar Award-winning author of November Road
“In Metropolis, Shapiro is the literary equivalent of a master juggler, writing with tremendous compassion and a wonderful knack for storytelling. Her characters whirl together within the confines of a self-storage unit and, though at its core is a mystery, its beating heart is their stories. It is a dazzling performance and a novel that will stay with me for a long time to come.”—Mary Morris, author of Gateway to the Moon
“Part mystery, part sociological study… fascinating.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Skillfully crafted with memorable characters, Metropolis is a riveting psychological thriller of a read from cover to cover. Raising crime fiction to an impressively high literary level…”—Midwest Book Review
A “spellbinder from the bestselling author of The Art Forger and The Muralist.”—Booklist
Kirkus Reviews
2022-03-02
An eclectic cast of characters converges in a self-storage warehouse where crime lurks in every unit.
“Metropolis” is the name of a seedy self-storage facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where several renters are hiding more than old furniture and paperwork. Liddy, a wealthy housewife with a violent husband, spends drug-fueled afternoons in a unit stuffed with her children's old toys. Jason, a lawyer fired from his prestigious firm and left by his wife, hangs a shingle outside his unit and practices law from a makeshift office inside. Marta, a brilliant Venezuelan graduate student whose visa has been revoked, lives in her unit while on the run from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The building’s owner, Zach, and his employee, Rose, look the other way when renters break the law by occupying units intended for inanimate objects. These arrangements might have continued peacefully were it not for a violent incident, foreshadowed on the first page, in which a man is seriously injured in the building’s elevator shaft. Through chapters narrated from the perspectives of several characters, the story of the incident—and its aftermath—unfolds slowly. Unfortunately, the characters are wooden, making it difficult to invest in their demise or salvation. The attempt to create a racially diverse cast flounders due to careless reliance on stereotypes. Black characters, including Jason, consistently curse more than White characters, both in unconvincing dialogue and in interior monologue. Marta, the undocumented immigrant, has little storyline beyond her panicked desire to stay in America. A snappy plot or spirited sentences might partially salvage the stock characters, but this novel has neither.
Boston readers might enjoy the close attention to city landmarks, but there’s not much else to recommend this thriller.
