First published 2021
Persey is seventeen and used to losing. Her parents favor her brother, school is a write-off, and fitting in has never been her thing. But escape rooms? Those she can do. When an invitation arrives for a high-stakes competition with a million-dollar prize, she signs up without hesitation. Eight contestants. One elaborate venue called Escape-Capades, Ltd. The rules say nothing about dying. The puzzles start off strange and get stranger fast. Then a contestant turns up dead, and it becomes clear that whoever designed this competition had no intention of letting everyone walk out. Persey works through riddles, traps, and increasingly grotesque challenges while trying to figure out who among the group can be trusted. The answer is almost nobody. As bodies pile up, she discovers the contestants share a hidden connection and that someone has been waiting a long time to settle a score. This is the prequel to the #MurderTrending series, set twenty years before Dee Guerra faced Alcatraz 2.0, and it shows exactly how the murder games got their start. The horror is bloody, the tone is sharp, and Persey's determination to survive is the one thing she has never had to practice.
Genres: mystery, horror, thriller, young-adult
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, gritty, high-stakes, suspenseful
Tropes: mystery-unraveling, revenge-plot, survival-game, unreliable-allies
Setting: Escape-Capades, Ltd., Alcatraz 2.0
Period: contemporary, twenty-years-before-main-series
352 pages · Paperback · Disney Hyperion
Content warnings: death, gore, graphic-violence, murder