I must confess that I enjoyed The DaVinci Code, which is not a popular opinion among the highbrow book club crowd. So I decided to try this new book that’s been compared to Dan Brown’s blockbuster. What did I think? Check out my Review of the Puzzle Master by Danielle Trussoni with link to my review of the sequel, The Puzzle Box!
The Puzzle Master by Danielle Trussoni
- Published on June 13, 2023 by Random House.
- Thanks to the publisher for sending me an advance copy for review.
Plot Summary for The Puzzle Master
Mike Brink, a celebrated and ingenious puzzle constructor, was once a promising Midwestern football star. But Brink suffered a traumatic brain injury that gave him acquired savant syndrome.
Now Mike can solve puzzles in ways ordinary people can’t. But it also left him deeply isolated, unable to fully connect with other people.
Everything changes after Brink meets Jess Price, a woman serving thirty years in prison for murder who hasn’t spoken a word since her arrest five years before.
When Price draws a perplexing puzzle, her psychiatrist believes it will explain her crime and calls Brink to solve it. What begins as a desire to crack an alluring cipher quickly morphs into an obsession with Price herself.
She soon reveals that there is something more urgent, and more dangerous, behind her silence, thrusting Brink into a hunt for the truth.
Review of The Puzzle Master
Some books start slow and get better as you read, and others get … different? Or weirder?
The Puzzle Master got off on an intriguing start for me. Main character Mike Brink is a sort of Jack Reacher-type character, a solitary person who drives around with his dog, Conundrum, nicknamed Connie.
After suffering a traumatic brain injury playing football, Mike has become a genius of sorts. He has a photographic memory and can see patterns that the rest of the world doesn’t. He’s well known as a puzzle solver and creator. So when he gets asked to visit to an upstate New York prison to see a mysterious puzzle drawn by an inmate, it seems totally normal for him to agree.
The prisoner, Jess Price, was convicted of the murder of her boyfriend a few years before. Mike meets her, sees the puzzle, and is officially intrigued. Me too.
But then things in The Puzzle Master get weirder and weirder. There are creepy dolls. There’s a dog-napping. A character just randomly starts piloting a helicopter, because of course she does. There’s stuff about bitcoin and techno-futurism and trans-humanism and 1800s Prague and Kabbalah.
It’s a LOT of ideas for one book. Like Mike, I think the author also must have a very far-ranging and interesting brain. But for someone reading the book, it can all be a little hard to follow as it zings from reanimated dolls to Jewish mysticism.
I am a fan of people who see the world differently, and I think that what they produce can be transformative. But also confusing.
You know when you’re watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all you can figure out is that there is a new Big Bad and a portal that got opened up (again!) and some kind of demonic possession (again!) and a rite that will either fix it all or destroy mankind (yep, again?) And you just shrug and watch it play out because you’re enjoying the ride?
That is how reading the last half of The Puzzle Master felt to me. I’d compare it more to Buffy than The DaVinci code, which felt a little more .. logical?
The issues in The Puzzle Master are interesting and truth is definitely stranger than fiction. One of the characters reminded me of that biohacker guy who injects himself with his son’s blood so that he can live forever. These are the kind of people in the book. But there are just so many issues that info-dumping becomes inevitable.
I think that The Puzzle Master will really appeal to some readers, who are more willing to go with the flow and embrace things that are mystical and even a bit (okay, a lot) wacky. The writing can be Very Dramatic. Very!!
If you enjoyed The Discovery of Witches (and a LOT of people did), to me The Puzzle Master had a similar kind of feel, with a main character with a medical condition that makes her sort of superhuman, breathless instalove, and dramatic paranormal happenings.
But if you’re the kind of reader who wants everything makes sense and be even remotely plausible, I don’t think The Puzzle Master is going to be for you.
Please give it a try and tell me what you thought in the comments!
If you love The Puzzle Master, check out my review for The Puzzle Box.