When you start hearing people talk about Megan Goldin’s first release in the United States, The Escape Room, you are going to hear the phrase “Un-put-down-able!” over and over again. Goldin is an excellent storyteller with a terrific knack for setting the pace that keeps her audience unable to turn away, and The Escape Room is a must-read!
We get a little sneak peak into the future, and where our story will take us, as the prologue provides us a portion of the end of the story. We are immediately taken back a day and a half earlier, when most of our cast of characters arrive at an unfamiliar building, for an unscheduled work event they have each been called to at the last minute. These four financial executives from a top-tier, high-brow, New York City firm all have different things, people, or events in their lives pulling them away, and making them consider not attending as instructed, but ultimately they all do what (we will learn) they always do and put the company before all else. Believing they are all there to participate in an escape room scenario that just might help the top executives know who to fire and who deserves a bigger bonus, they have all grudgingly turned their backs on important life events to prove their loyalty to the firm. Not one of them would consider being absent and leaving himself, or herself, vulnerable to the potential backstabbing of the others in this foursome. It’s clear to the reader immediately that there are many secrets, many lies, and much history between these co-workers and the thick, heavy tension is crowded into the tight four walls of the elevator along with them as they begin the challenge that has been laid out.
Things start to unravel very quickly as the four big personalities try to function inside the small room. Questions, quizzes, and clues bring up some of the secrets of the group and of individual members as they try to figure out just what is really going on. Throughout the chapters that take place in the elevator, the reader can feel the fear, the growing panic, the explosions of rage, the growing hopelessness, and the sense of dread. These chapters display for the reader the constant, and constantly growing, terror of the escape room participants.
Alternating with these chapters, however, is the story of Sara Hall. We know immediately that Sara has something to do with the elevator inhabitants, and as her story progresses, we get an excellent contrast between this up-and-comer and the hedonistic quartet we have already met. However, knowing Sara Hall’s story will somehow be leading us toward the disastrous climax we learned of in the prologue, we now have the one-two punch of slowly building, methodically paced, steadily mounting dread in between the razor-sharp, urgent terror of the chapters set in the elevator. It is excellent storytelling and it constantly pulls the reader further and further inside.
From her thorough descriptions of the financial firm and its seductive techniques of winning employees over to the life of greed and grandeur, complete with a winner-take-all, the end justifies the means, and zero sum game philosophy, Goldin has the infrequently seen talent of writing likeable and unlikable characters equally well.
There was only one time as I was reading that I was truly taken out of the story, but even that negative can be looked at through a positive lens. During new employee orientation at the Wall Street firm, one character makes a comment regarding being all-in on the company philosophies as “drinking the kool-aid.” I personally find this expression so distasteful and objectionable, (how did the deaths of almost a thousand people become a punchline?), that it abruptly pulled me out of this fascinating world that I had become completely engrossed in. However, at that point in the story, the reader is at the doorstep of developing a more and more negative view of this company, its staff, and its executives. Rather than remaining outside the story (and missing out), I chose to see this through the lens of how that company would have executives so unlikable that they really would use that thoughtless expression. I’ll admit, it’s a pretty minor issue, and I may be the one person in a million who would be bothered by it.
This book is engrossing, it’s exciting, and it is a great way to remember just how much fun it can be to “escape” into a great book. (Sorry, could not resist the pun!) This is an incredibly exciting debut from an author to keep an eye on! I am all in with Megan Goldin and I can’t wait to see what she releases next.
The Escape Room is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers as of July 30th 2019.
Will you be reading The Escape Room? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are ruthlessly ambitious high-flyers working in the lucrative world of Wall Street finance where deception and intimidation thrive. Getting rich is all that matters, and they’ll do anything to reach the top.
When they are ordered to participate in a corporate team-building exercise that requires them to escape from a locked elevator, dark secrets of their team begin to be laid bare.
The biggest mystery to solve in this lethal game: What happened to Sara Hall? Once a young shining star—”now gone but not forgotten”.
This is no longer a game.
They’re fighting for their lives.
I just finished this and thought it was such a great book! I have a question, though- in regards to the mistakes in Sara’s reports towards the end of her tenure with the firm (that essentially got her fired), did we ever find out if they were being tampered with because she knew about Lucy, or was she just overworked? Maybe I missed this? Thanks!
Thanks a lot for providing the review of this escape room novel here. Megan Goldin has done an exceptional job writing this novel, and I am sure a lot of people will agree with me on this. If they don’t, something is wrong with them.