The Puzzle Master - Danielle Trussoni

Fiction

Rating: 8/10

The world is made up of brainteasers, ciphers, cryptograms, rebus and pattern recognition puzzles. And brilliant puzzle creator Brink can disentangle any he comes across.

Brink cannot resist the urge to solve a puzzle put in front of him, no level of difficultly is insurmountable for his mind. A nervous energy will overcome him until he can put right the disorder. His brain will latch itself on to patterns or sequences without his consent or, at times, his awareness.

After an accident left him with this unique skillset, Brink has found a rhythm to his life. One that is upended when he gets called to a prison to try and breakthrough to a patient who hasn’t spoken a word in years. But she has drawn a baffling puzzle, one that sets Brink on a path to finding out things he would be better off not knowing.

Better off not wanting to know what shouldn’t be revealed. To see secret things, dangerous things. To unlock a Pandora’s box that once opened, will release unimaginable evil.

This book veered into too many ideas, leaving this reader feeling at turns discombobulated and irritated. If you believe the hype, it’s supposed to be a read alike to the Da Vinci Code. Only as far as a synopsis goes.

Footnote: While it might be fictional, or not, the book explores the nature of future information collection and dissemination. Remember this term, qubit. No zeros or ones; nonexistence or existence. Information can be here or there, black and white, at the same time. Bam…mic dropped.

Book Pairing(s): The Eight by Katherine Neville, The Enigma Of Room 622 by Joel Dicker, The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte