Somehow, the two books I read this weekend both focus on elevators. And both were creepy AF. In Megan Goldin’s debut novel The Escape Room, four young investment bankers are summoned to what appears to be some kind of team-building event set in a Manhattan skyscraper. They board an elevator, thinking they are being whisked to some penthouse or other event space, only to find that the challenge is to escape from the elevator.

As the story unfolds, the cutthroat nature of investment banking is revealed in all its ugly reality, and the soul-killing reality of the lengths to which these four have gone to “make it” and experience lives of luxury is exposed.

These four are extremely competitive, and part of the challenge is to work cooperatively to solve the challenge…but as the story unfolds, the mystery as to the reason they are trapped in the elevator gets deeper before it is resolved.

They expect to be rescued in an hour…then as hours and days go by, it gets even uglier.  As the lights go off and the doors stay shut, they realize they have been caught in a dangerous game of survival…but why?

Lots of good suspense, and very entertaining. Not exactly literature, but it doesn’t pretend to be—just some nice escapist fiction. Four stars.