Review by New York Times Review
the idea seems irresistible: What if the popular party game of people stuck together in a room - trying to escape only with vague clues provided by their captor - turned lethal? What if the stakes were life or death? Perhaps it is a parable for our times. "The Escape Room," by Megan Goldin, follows this lure. In her debut thriller, a team of four hotshot Wall Street investment bankers are drawn into an elevator in a remote building, where no one will hear their cries for help. The doors close behind them. And the game - if that's what it is - begins. "Welcome to the escape room," the television monitor above them reads. "Your goal is simple. Get out alive." Within hours they are a sweating, disheveled, terrified mess. (Those of us with claustrophobia will relate.) Of course matters grow quickly worse. Clues become visible on the metal walls. Secrets are revealed. Resentments boil to the surface. A weapon appears. Bloodshed seems inevitable. This all might feel predictable if not for Goldin's talent. She brings a lovely complexity to what could be trite characters, and a sure hand at ratcheting up the tension. The pages turn themselves. The story switches back and forth between the entombed Wall Street bankers, sweating out their seemingly imminent demise, and a young woman who worked on their team - Sara Hall, who is "dead but not forgotten." Sara, we learn, disappeared some years before under less than auspicious circumstances. The surprise of this fast-paced novel is the bankers themselves, who are depicted as humans with desires and - sometimes - sweet vulnerability. Goldin knows readers will want to push the red button on such a crew, and so she enlists our compassion to keep us in the game. The women are especially relatable, trying to advance in a world where pregnancy is a career-ending move and men go to strip bars to conclude deals, cutting women out of both promotion and profits. The relentless hours, the worshiping at the altar of money and the rank chauvinism of Wall Street feel all too real. One starts wanting to rescue these hapless capitalists, and perhaps take them home for some humble soup. The missing Sara Hall, who helps narrate, is especially sympathetic. Initially drawn to medicine, she chooses business school instead because she needs to take care of her aging parents. Goldin captures the tremulousness of a young woman from a working-class background trying to fit into a world of Gucci ties and goatish laughter. The scenes of Sara navigating a dissociative life while pretending she is fully in it add credence to a story that otherwise can delve into the implausible. The writing is no frills. One can see Goldin's background as a reporter in the eyesto-the-road prose. As a debut novelist Goldin has room to grow - it would be nice to see her connect more with the joy of language, and take more care with her descriptions, which can veer into cliché (eyes here are like "a blue ocean on a sunny day"). Parts of the novel could have used more research, as credibility stretches to incredulity. But as a light thriller, "The Escape Room" delivers all that it promises. It is a sleek, well-crafted ride to a surprisingly twisty conclusion, posing a satisfying and unexpected question at the end: What if escaping the escape room means changing who we are? rene denfeld is the author of "The Child Finder."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 4, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
It is not difficult to figure out who has set up the escape room, which is actually an elevator, in this debut from journalist Goldin, and there is clearly no happy ending likely for the four colleagues trapped inside; but fans of JP Delany and Ruth Ware will want to be right in there with them. Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are living the life of overindulged entitlement, straight out of The Wolf of Wall Street. Their ruthless ambition and greed drive them to all manner of arrogance and intimidation. Perhaps even murder. Their poisonous remarks to each other have always concealed secrets that leak out as the hours pass in a hellishly overheated, confined place, and it seems only a matter of time before they turn feral and attempt to devour one another. Meanwhile, the sad fates of two of their coworkers unfold in the background. A nail-biting tale of a corporate team-building exercise gone horribly wrong, with a credible explanation of how the seemingly undoable is done. And to the victor go the spoils.--Jane Murphy Copyright 2019 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Australian author Goldin makes her debut with a riveting, if flawed, tale of greed and revenge set on Wall Street. After being called to an out-of-office meeting, four investment bankers from the Stanhope and Sons firm are trapped in an elevator on their way to an escape room challenge organized by their company. They realize that the elevator itself is the escape room when they start to receive increasingly more personal puzzles to solve on the elevator's TV monitor. Meanwhile, in flashbacks, recent hire Sara Hall becomes indoctrinated into the firm's culture of long hours and incredible pay. When a coworker dies, Sara wonders whether foul play was involved. Though both plots start off strong, the elevator narrative slows as it waits for Sara's story to catch up. Lucky flukes and coincidences stretch credulity, and the unlikability of those targeted for revenge lessens the scheme's impact. But these shortcomings aren't fatal. Thriller fans will eagerly turn the pages to see what happens next. 150,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: David Gernert, Gernert Company. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Four people answer an ominous summons from human resources only to be deliberately trapped in an elevator in Goldin's debut thriller.In the highflying world of finance, Vincent, Sam, Jules, and Sylvie used to be superstars, but recently they've failed to close too many lucrative deals, and they know their jobs are hanging by a thread. Called to a Friday evening meeting at an office building under construction, they become trapped in the steel elevator, which has been rigged to emulate an escape room. If they solve the clues, perhaps they can find their way out. At first, they assume it's just the worst team-building exercise everbut the clues point them toward a much darker possibility. How much do they know about the deaths of two young associates? Will they be able to solve the mystery and escapeor is the whole system rigged against them? There's a Spanish proverb used by Tana French in The Likeness: " 'Take what you want and pay for it,' says God." The main characters in Goldin's novel should probably have paid more attention to the second half of that saying. Powerful, attractive, and unbelievably wealthy, they truly believe that their security and success are worth protecting at any cost. Despite the unsavory charactersor perhaps even because of themthis novel is pure entertainment. Offering a modern take on the classic locked-room mystery, Goldin strings the reader along by alternating chapters set in the past and in the present and by peppering the present chapters with riddles and word games. This is a commentary on the cutthroat, hypocritical world of finance, where one must sacrifice everything to stay on top. It provides us with antagonists we love to hate as well as a sympathetic heroine who pays the ultimate price for survival: her own sense of goodness and fair play.Cancel all your plans and call in sick; once you start reading, you'll be caught in your own escape roomthe only key to freedom is turning the last page! Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
