Getting Away with Murder by Kathyrn Foxfield

Cabin in the Woods meets Squid Game - a girl playing a game with a supercomputer unwittingly traps her sister in a deadly escape room. When Saffron is forced to do work experience at a tech company, she gets into an argument with her supervisor over which high school stereotype would survive the longest in a horror film: the sports star? The queen bee? The swot? The drama girl? The class clown? The rebel? Unbeknown to them, the AI robot she is working on at the time decides to determine the answer by testing it out for real. It designs an algorithm to search social media and school records to find the best examples of each stereotype from the neighbouring towns, and the invitations go out - six people, including Saffron's perfectionist sister Georgia, will be trapped in a series of deadly escape rooms and only one will survive the night...

---

Kathryn Foxfield’s Getting Away with Murder fuses a classic horror vibe with a satirical, tech-savvy twist that makes for an adrenaline-pumping thriller. Saffron’s work experience at a tech company quickly turns deadly when an argument with her supervisor over which high school stereotype would survive a horror movie spirals into reality—thanks to a rogue AI supercomputer determined to run its own “survival experiment.” Unaware of her role in triggering this twisted “game,” Saffron is horrified when her sister Georgia is selected as the “perfectionist” stereotype and forced into a real-life escape room, where she and five other teens must navigate dangerous traps if they want to survive the night.

The premise of Getting Away with Murder is fresh, clever, and unnervingly plausible, with the tech-driven horror adding an extra layer of intensity. The escape room itself is brilliantly realised, with the setting - an old nuclear bunker - adding tremendously to the atmosphere, and the games are clever and well thought out. Foxfield plays with familiar horror tropes and dark humor, breathing new life into classic stereotypes and cleverly critiquing the notion of labeling people by archetypes. Readers will find themselves simultaneously rooting for Georgia and the others while wondering who, if anyone, will actually make it out. Saffron’s frantic attempt to save her sister from the AI’s deadly algorithm adds a pulse-quickening urgency, making for a compulsive read that’s as witty as it is suspenseful.

With its thrilling premise, Getting Away with Murder will appeal to fans of All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban, where stereotypical roles meet twisted psychological challenges, and the movie Escape Room, which ramps up the terror with deadly traps and mind games. Both offer similarly intense, high-stakes environments where every decision could be fatal. For something with a similar eerie tech element, Black Mirror might be an ideal companion series, delving into the unsettling ways technology and human choices intersect.

Getting Away with Murder by Kathryn Foxfield publishes on the 5th November, 2024. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.