The Escape Room: A Novel

by Megan Goldin

Overview

"One of my favorite books of the year." —Lee Child

“Cancel all your plans and call in sick; once you start reading, you'll be caught in your own escape room—the only key to freedom is turning the last page!” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"A sleek, well-crafted ride." —The New York Times

In Megan Goldin's unforgettable debut, The Escape Room, four young Wall Street rising stars discover the price of ambition when an escape room challenge turns into a lethal game of revenge.

Welcome to the escape room. Your goal is simple. Get out alive.

In the lucrative world of finance, Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam are at the top of their game. They’ve mastered the art of the deal and celebrate their success in style—but a life of extreme luxury always comes at a cost.

Invited to participate in an escape room challenge as a team-building exercise, the ferociously competitive co-workers crowd into the elevator of a high-rise building, eager to prove themselves. But when the lights go off and the doors stay shut, it quickly becomes clear that this is no ordinary competition: they’re caught in a dangerous game of survival.

Trapped in the dark, the colleagues must put aside their bitter rivalries and work together to solve cryptic clues to break free. But as the game begins to reveal the team’s darkest secrets, they realize there’s a price to be paid for the terrible deeds they committed in their ruthless climb up the corporate ladder. As tempers fray, and the clues turn deadly, they must solve one final chilling puzzle: which one of them will kill in order to survive?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250219657
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/30/2019
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	535,853
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

MEGAN GOLDIN worked as a correspondent for Reuters and other media outlets where she covered war, peace, international terrorism and financial meltdowns in the Middle East and Asia. She is now based in Melbourne, Australia where she raises three sons and is a foster mum to Labrador puppies learning to be guide dogs. THE ESCAPE ROOM is her debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

[Goldin] brings a lovely complexity to what could be trite characters, and a sure hand at ratcheting up the tension. The pages turn themselves…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 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?

The New York Times Book Review - Rene Denfeld

06/03/2019

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.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Escape Room:

“The pages turn themselves…THE ESCAPE ROOM delivers all that it promises. It is a sleek, well-crafted ride to a surprisingly twisty conclusion.” —New York Times Book Review

“THE ESCAPE ROOM works as the ultimate locked-room mystery…Goldin excels at illustrating the pressures of a Wall Street career.” —Associated Press

"Addicting." —Time Magazine

“There is clearly no happy ending likely for the four colleagues trapped inside [the escape room]; but fans of JP Delany and Ruth Ware will want to be right in there with them…a nail-biting tale of a corporate team-building exercise gone horribly wrong.” —Booklist

“Cancel all your plans and call in sick; once you start reading, you'll be caught in your own escape room—the only key to freedom is turning the last page!” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“Riveting…[a] tale of greed and revenge set on Wall Street…Thriller fans will eagerly turn the pages to see what happens next.” —Publishers Weekly

“A shrewd, brilliantly structured thriller doubling as a takedown of corporate culture.” —Shelf Awareness

"High wire tension from the first moment to the last. Four ruthless people locked in a deadly game where victory means survival. Gripping and unforgettable!" —Harlan Coben

"Fantastic. One of my favorite books of the year." —Lee Child

"Amazing...a thriller set in an elevator [that explores] the vast territory of people's worst natures. A nightmarish look inside ourselves. Simply riveting." —Louise Penny

“A sharp, slick, utterly engrossing thriller. This knockout debut hooked me from the first page and didn’t let go.” —Cristina Alger, USA Today bestselling author of The Banker’s Wife

“Smart and compelling... I devoured this novel!” —Karen Cleveland, bestselling author of Need to Know

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From the Publisher

03/01/2019

In this debut thriller, four hyper-competitive Wall Streeters rush to a meeting at corporate headquarters on a weekend eve and are thrown into a team-building exercise requiring escape from a locked elevator. But the exercise isn't what it seems, and soon dark secrets—and blood—are spilling.

Library Journal

★ 2019-05-12
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 ever—but 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 escape—or 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 characters—or perhaps even because of them—this 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 room—the only key to freedom is turning the last page!

Kirkus Reviews