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To be clear right up front, NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE is not a mystery. From the vapory wisps on the cover and the first few pages, it's obvious that this novel involves ghosts and murders. It's even obvious to some extent who has been killed, who did the killing, and why, although you have to read almost all 629 pages to get the full explanation of the why. So, not a mystery. A horror story then? Possibly. Some really dark and terrible things take place here. Rape, torture, haunting, horrific murders, insanity-inducing threats. And yet, as dark and terrible as these events are, they are never as frightening to the reader as they might be.
The story is set primarily in Birmingham, England, and revolves around Stephanie, a young woman working temporary jobs just to pay the rent after her father dies and her insane stepmother throws her out of her home. Trying to save money, Stephanie answers an ad for a large room in a boarding house at a price that seems too good to be believed. Which, of course, should have been a red flag - one of many that Stephanie chooses to ignore for one reason or another. From Stephanie's first night in the house, Adam Nevill sets up what should be a frightening tale. He starts off playing on the most basic of human fears, like strange noises in the dark, ghosts, and the presence of evil. He even wonderfully captures that childhood fear that we never quite outgrow of being afraid to put our feet on the floor in a dark room because something under the bed might reach out and grab us. However, he also spends almost half the book trying to convince us that Stephanie truly is trapped in this house with the ghosts and awful people and has no choice but to stay because she has no money, no friends, and no family. Methinks he doth protest too much. Perhaps Nevill realized how tenuous that particular argument was, so he spends page after page trying to convince himself as well as his readers that it's so and throwing in an overabundance of similes (many of which seem chosen for their oddness rather than their ability to clarify an image) and repeated actions and descriptions. Overall, although the first half of the book situates Stephanie in this horror-filled house and shows her being visited by ghosts and threatened by Knacker and Fergal, the two men trying to run a brothel and force Stephanie into prostitution, it primarily feels like filler. The really terrifying scene at the end of this long, long build-up is masterfully done - but then we have about 300 more pages of a slow unwind. The last half of the book is better than the first half, primarily because it provides some explanation of the evil that inspires the dark acts Stephanie witnesses and is haunted by, but, here again, what could have been very frightening simply isn't. Nevill seems to have been aiming for a word/page count rather than pacing a novel to build terror, and the result is more likely to produce more nodding off than nightmares.
§ Meredith Frazier, a writer with a background in English literature, lives in Dallas, Texas
Reviewed by Meredith Frazier, June 2015
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