Puzzle House

Why? Why? Why Why? Why Why Why? Why Why Why Why Why? Why Why Why Why Why Why Why Why?

This single word echoed in my head with every single new plot point like the world’s most annoying Fibonacci Sequence.

From the get-go the reader is promised a fun little romp where a bunch of strangers vie for a dead millionaire’s fortune and things immediately go south. It’s a dumb but entertaining flip from Escape Room to the Saw movies as one could probably guess. Quickly, the author shoves the hook away and apparently starts slamming his fist on the keyboard. By the second escape room, the silliness snowballs into an incomprehensible mess.

I figured, by the way the book started, that the plot would slowly unfold into some huge interconnected web where everything came together. Well, that’s not so much what happened. The one-dimensional characters remained in 1D World. They made silly decisions. The world’s greatest puzzle maker made shitty puzzles. Stuff just sort of happened with no rhyme or reason. Attempts at humor fell flat. Plot twists happen that will make you scratch your head. Honestly, I’m not certain Dan Brown didn’t ghost write this. That’s how bad it was.