No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill

Darkness lives within ...

Cash-strapped, working for agencies and living in shared accommodation, Stephanie Booth feels she can fall no further. So when she takes a new room at the right price, she believes her luck has finally turned. But 82 Edgware Road is not what it appears to be. It's not only the eerie atmosphere of the vast, neglected house, or the disturbing attitude of her new landlord, Knacker McGuire, that makes her uneasy - it's the whispers behind the fireplace, the scratching beneath floors, the footsteps in the dark, and the young women weeping in neighbouring rooms. And when Knacker's cousin Fergal arrives, the danger goes vertical. 

But this is merely a beginning, a gateway to horrors beyond Stephanie's worst nightmares. And in a house where no one listens to the screams, will she ever get out alive?

Although not my main reading genre, I do enjoy a good horror story. Unfortunately, I have found those difficult to find. Many horror novels either do not scare me or they are just excuses for descriptions of lots of blood and gore. Finding a story that is actually chilling is one of my pet peeves when it comes to reading and few writers have lived up to it. One of the few who does is Adam Nevill.

In his latest, Nevill takes on the haunted house, through the eyes of a young woman, Stephanie, who finds herself forced into taking a room in a decrepit old house in Birmingham. What Nevill does extremely well here is to make the very real situation Stephanie finds herself in just as horrific as the paranormal goings on – alone, friendless and broke, she must put up with the interest of her landlord, a horrific and yet very human man who serves to create much of the tension in the first part of the novel. 

Things take a surprising turn half way through, descending into more classical paranomal territory, but Nevill hands this very well, keeping the stress levels high. I have seen others compare much of this second part to Silent Hill, which is definitely apt. All in all, No One Gets Out Alive succeeds as a horror story, but also as a thriller that delves into some dark truths about the society we live in. 

I gave No One Gets Out Alive 4 stars.