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Book Review: The Puzzle Box by Danielle Trussoni

Cover art for The Puzzle Box by Danielle Trussoni

The Puzzle Box by Danielle Trussoni

Random House, 2024

ISBN: 9780593595321

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com

 

 

Part mystery, part puzzle, and all thrills, The Puzzle Box is a knockout.  For all those that loved The Da Vinci Code, this one’s for you.  With maddening puzzles, a genius as the protagonist, and a wild pursuit around the country of Japan, it’s just as good, and in some ways, better.

 

The lead, Mike Brink, is a mathematical genius with an eidetic memory, who gained his ability after a brain injury.  It’s called “acquired savant syndrome”, and it’s a real thing.  Mike is contacted by the Emperor of Japan for help in solving a sacred puzzle box that has bedeviled the imperial family for centuries.  Inside may be a secret important to the future of Japan as a nation.  The problem is that the puzzle box is not only difficult, it’s lethal.  If Mike makes a mistake opening it, he can’t try again: he won’t be around for another attempt.

 

What makes this a great story?  The pace is frenetic: it never slows a whit, right up to the end.  The author does an outstanding job of incorporating the history of  Japanese emperors, shoguns and samurai into the story.  The book’s setting, with ancient shrines, forgotten buildings, and snow-covered bamboo forests, is the perfect backdrop for a treasure hunt, much better than just using a series of cities, as in The Da Vinci Code.

 

The pursuit angle adds urgency to the pacing, as the Emperor isn’t the only one interested in the puzzle box contents.  Artificial intelligence is a big part of the chase, and the story credibly shows how AI can easily be more dangerous than any mortal element in our technology-enslaved world.  A cautionary tale, perhaps?  As for the puzzles… it’s more than the puzzle box itself:  that’s just the start of the clues that lead Brink and his cohorts across Japan, racing to beat the clock.  There is a window of time that the puzzle can be solved in, which helps drive the book’s pacing even faster.  The puzzle box itself doesn’t do anything magic, but it’s just as dangerous as the Lemarchand Configuration from the Hellraiser series.  Mistakes opening the box (and some of the other puzzles) can lead to amputated digits, poisoning, and more.  The puzzles are the perfect backbone to build one hell of a thrill ride on, and The Puzzle Box is all of that, and more.

 

What more do you really need to know?  The chances of readers not liking this book are approximately zero. It should take the country by storm the way The Da Vinci Code did…and that’s the BOTTOM LINE!  Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on December 21, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Pierce the Veil by David Simms

Pierce the Veil  by David Simms

Macabre Ink, 2024

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1637890516

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition (pre-order)

Buy: Amazon.com

 

Derek Boone and his friend and fellow bandmate Shane are navigating a snowstorm on their way home from a show when the car they’re in skids off the road and off the side of a bridge into freezing water, killing them both. Almost a day later, Boone is revived using an experimental cryogenic technology, All he wants is for life to go back to normal, fix things with his religious fiancée, Megan, and grieve Shane (I found his grief experience to be very convincing). However, his unique experience has made him news, and everyone has an opinion about what he should do and whether he should share his NDE (near-death experience) although he doesn’t remember it. He is suspended from his job as a teacher due to parent concerns that he will bring it up, asked to do a television interview, targeted by a priest-assassin, and kidnapped, with Megan, by a cult. The cult wants to use his NDE to prove to the world that there is no heaven, only a place of energy absorbing “clouds” that drain souls like batteries, and the brotherhood of the priest believes that due to the length of his NDE he can push through that “hell” to find light on the other side, to bolster the world’s belief that there is a heaven. It’s interesting that both sides make the exact same arguments. The brotherhood, as an underground branch of the Catholic Church, has a lot more institutional power behind it. Despite everything, Boone manages to hang on to the core of who he is.

 

Simms drops you right into the middle of the action, and it is a wild ride up to the end, with some horrific scenes, as well as some dread-inducing moments at the end. Yet there is space for Boone to participate in and process philosophical discussions on NDEs and the afterlife that are necessary to move the plot forward without feeling like the plot has lost its thread.

 

In terms of character development. Boone’s close friends Charlie and Heather, who are briefly mentioned near the beginning of the book, are memorable and help move the plot forward, Megan, whose function at first seems to be irritatingly pushy and misguided about religion, absolutely rocks in a team-up with Boone as the priest-assassin chases them through a shopping mall, She shows strength of character and puts herself on the line for Boone. Even the priest-assassin is revealed to have more to him than we initially see.

 

Boone is just an ordinary guy wanting to live an ordinary life, whose singular experience leaves him, and the people he loves, in precarious situations while he attempts to unravel his experiences during his NDE. As much as he wants to believe things in his life can stay the same, he’s’ left in a haze of uncertainty, grief, love, and fear that he needs to work through himself to find answers.

 

Pierce the Veil  is not just a thrill ride. It will make you think.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on July 11, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Outrage: Level 10 by Lucy Leitner

cover art for Outrage: Level 10 by Lucy Leitner

Outrage: Level 10 by Lucy Leitner

Blood Bound Publishing, 2021

ISBN: 9781940250496

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Amazon.com

 

Outrage Level 10 succeeds as both a thriller and a darkly humorous look at today’s overly sensitive “cancel culture” society taken to extremes.  It’s an exciting story, and the setting will force readers to ask questions about where we are headed as a society, and what we would consider a “perfect’” world.

 

It’s a strange future that Alex Malone, ex-head breaker for the now-defunct Pittsburgh Penguins (a hockey team) and now a cop, lives in.  There is no more government, just the Speaker, as the mouthpiece of the People; the Hammer, who is the People’s enforcer and… that’s it.  It’s all the will of the People in regards to policy, crime, and everything else, decided by popular vote of the citizens through their phones and various social applications.  Almost all crime consists of someone offending someone else.  Once it’s been posted online, if the outrage meter hits high enough through people commenting, the offenders face the Hammer, who most likely will condemn the perpetrators to the mysterious Maze, from which almost no one returns.  People do live much longer, since all diseases have been cured, or the causing substances banned, but is it worth the price?

 

That’s the world of Alex, and as a cop, he’s a member of an almost unnecessary profession (apparently “defund the police”  REALLY took hold) since everything is by popular fiat, and everyone is policing each other.  It doesn’t help that the few cops left are reviled by pretty much everyone.   Alex tries a new drug designed to treat his CTE, and the drug, through visions, pulls him into a mystery involving senior citizens disappearing from retirement homes.  As Alex soon finds out, it’s hard to solve a case that affects the few people left in power, and even harder when everyone is looking for an excuse, real or imagined, to take him down.

 

The plotline is an intriguing mystery and a tough nut to crack.  Alex makes an excellent protagonist, and is sympathetic as a person who really has no value in a politically correct society.  That is, until he remembers the old police motto, “to protect and serve”.  In Leitner’s world, protecting means eliminating anyone whom you disagree with, not helping for the common good.

 

Leitner”s vision of a world gone crazy provides the excellent story backdrop.  She wisely keeps her own views out of it, instead using her razon-sharp humor to get the point across, without coming off as preachy.  That’s the mark of excellent satire; the ability to write without tipping your own hand to the readers.  She’s shown this skill in other works like Bad Vibrations, and it’s on full display here.  Leitner has created a terrifying world, where people are condemned for accidentally serving the wrong food, since that can be seen as aggression or some sort of -ism.

 

Bottom line: another excellent work from one of the smartest writers of dystopian satire today.  Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on January 25, 2024 by , Reply
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