and explains the rules and the prize: $10,000. They agree and start out by going through a door labelled “1.”

Of course, this is no ordinary fun house or escape room challenge, although the first few rooms Joe and Helen enter give off a cheap carny vibe with a mirror maze and a “guess their age” game. The first hint Joe has that the house isn’t what it first seems is the contract he and Helen sign before starting the “contest.” The fine print contains a clause that any contestant who fails to finish the game forfeits their soul. Later, the carnival games Joe and Helen play involve other bizarre penalties for losing.

As The No-End House progresses, the “rooms” become increasingly expansive, and Joe soon realizes, “we’re not in Kansas anymore,” or, more precisely, the subterranean sewer tunnels in Barcelona, where Joe guesses the first rooms are located. Without getting into spoilerish details, the challenges Joe and Helen face escalate from carny games to life-and-death combat with a bizarre variety of adversaries. Readers will also increasingly wonder whether Joe and Helen’s life-threatening “experiences” are real or the products of Joe’s imagination, perhaps fueled by the mushrooms he and Helen consume in one room. Finally, when The No-End House seems complete and readers have formed their conclusions about what Joe and Helen encountered, the author subverts those expectations with a pair of brilliant twists in the book’s final chapter. One shocking revelation will come as a complete surprise to everyone, and the other, while some might have guessed it, raises even more questions on the book’s last page.

Some readers may be put off by the novel’s promotional material, which suggests a more straightforward horror experience than what Joe and Helen ultimately encounter. I rarely read much into these blurbs, since playing with readers’ expectations is a staple of horror fiction. I enjoyed the increasingly outlandish environments in which Joe and Helen found themselves. Readers should have been aware of possible supernatural elements in The No-End House as soon as they read the fine print in Joe’s contract or, even before that, when they saw the word “supernatural” in the book’s blurb.

Although I enjoyed The No-End House, it had some developments I did not like. At one point, Helen reveals her backstory to Joe, and it involves a shocking event from her childhood that recalls the recent TV series Found. However, Helen omits one crucial detail in her narrative that I would have expected anyone to include. This detail becomes important later in the book, when Joe’s ignorance of it allows the author to pull off another plot twist. That device struck me as a cheap swindle by the author. The No-End House has a bigger shortcoming. Some secondary characters appear comical or cliched when first introduced, reinforcing Joe’s belief that he and Helen are in a sideshow-type fun house. Later, however, the author expects readers to take these characters seriously, as deadly villains. The best example of this device is a man Joe describes as a “midget Nazi.” He’s exactly what you would expect when Joe first sees him in one mirror in the maze. I pictured the actor Peter Dinklage wearing a black SS uniform. Unfortunately, I couldn’t shake that image when the character returned to threaten Joe and Helen later in the book.

I liked The No-End House a lot, and I admired it even more. The author was unafraid to take chances and play with readers’ expectations en route to a shock ending that will alienate or infuriate some readers. I liked the fact that when the book ended, I wasn’t certain just what Joe and Helen had experienced over the previous 300 pages. I think my last reaction was precisely what the author intended here. The flaws I noted detracted somewhat from the story’s overall quality. However, there’s no end to the sense of puzzlement and enjoyment readers will experience when they read The No-End House.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.