My rating: 🌟🌟🌟 (3 stars)
Publisher: St Martin's Press (August 2019)
The opening of the story won points with me for the suspenseful set up. It was very atmospheric and definitely set a great tone. Also, the set up is quite the game of chess as pawns manipulate and demonstrate varying degrees of power in some seriously ruthless endeavours. Through flashbacks, the story is related to explain how we got to the opening scene and it's clear that the mains of this story are being manipulated & their character flaws & vices capitalized upon by someone and they don't realize it. They were all awful so there's little sympathy even when they are treated harshly by another in the group.
Unfortunately, that suspense wasn't kept at a high pitch for most of the book. It's not a criticism but this story had a lot of information to relate as dirty dealings went and while steady it didn't lend itself to the "OMGWTH??!!" factor. When you open with shooting and blood running out of an elevator, I am going to be stuck on that until we loop back to the moment before that. I did find it somewhat of a compulsive read because for as many times as I had to put it down, I wanted to get back to it. The back quarter of the book really saved it for me as the murderer is revealed and then all the pawns fall and the most powerful chess piece remains standing, The Queen. She rolled up everyone, slipped away and all I could hear was the music at the end of the Jason Bourne movies.
Many thanks to the publisher for the Advance Reader's Copy.
Summary: 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.
No comments