Robin Caroll. Stratagem. Uhrichsville OH: Barbour, 2018. E-book.

Have you had a chance to try your skill in an escape room? In the last few years, these have become popular venues for groups of people looking for a few hours’ fun that is a little different from miniature golf.

Well, Grayson Thibodeaux, former consulting psychologist for the New Orleans Police Department, is now co-owner of a management consulting firm that uses escape room games, among other things, to develop better corporate management techniques. He and his partner script corporate retreats. This time, though, their company is consulting with a firm that Grayson’s ex-wife works for.

We can predict what may happen. During the retreat, there are various psychological exercises, escape rooms being one of them. Then, the second afternoon of the retreat, Grayson’s ex-wife is murdered.

Grayson has an alibi, sort of. Because his ex-wife is participating in the retreat, he excused himself from being present and was two hours away for the weekend golfing with some friends. However, there are about four hours unaccounted for, so maybe he did arrange her murder. After all, he helped write the script.

Nearly everyone in the New Orleans Police Department knows Grayson because of his previous consulting work, including his friend Brandon Gibbons. Brandon and his partner, Danielle, are assigned to his case. Brandon cannot believe Grayson could have done it; Danielle thinks everything points to Grayson.

The story is told mostly from Grayson and Brandon’s point of view, but there are complications. A lot of the evidence disappears from the retreat site before the police have secured it. For example, the next week his former mother-in-law mysteriously gets the suitcase her daughter had brought to the retreat. Several details also seem to point to Grayson.

His wife had a severe allergy to cherries. Someone apparently spiked a can of her energy drink with some cherry juice. She always carried an epipen—in fact, she had packed two of them with her for the retreat. Yet, somehow, when she reacts, and, of course, recognizes what is happening, she cannot find either of the epipens. Before the ambulance can get there, she is dead.

Danielle is apparently not the only person who thinks he is guilty. His home is vandalized by someone accusing him of murder. His ex-mother-in-law, however, takes his side and believes he could not have done it.

There are a number of plot twists and New Orleans rainstorms that keep the reader guessing. This is an appealing mystery with the escape room twist. It is an original scenario, and even a somewhat original way to kill someone off. The title may be a little overstated, but it is safe to say that the killer develops a stratagem.

Perhaps there is less of a stratagem to solve the crime, but there are plural mysteries. At first it seems like Stratagem will be the ultimate closed room mystery (a escape room, after all), but we begin to see that the rooms are not nearly as closed as they first appear. Both the tension and number of suspects grow. The escape room is a clever concept that works well.