The Kabbalah meets the New York Times crossword in a brainy thriller.
Called in as an expert on a murder case involving a mysterious puzzle, famed puzzle constructor Mike Brink is drawn into a dark conspiracy going back to the 13th century.
Brink was a high school football star in Ohio when he suffered a brain injury on the field that left him with acquired savant syndrome (a real, though rare, condition). He can read War and Peace in a few hours and quote from it at will—and make a living creating puzzles for the New York Times and other outlets. But when a prison psychologist asks him to take a look at a puzzle drawn by Jess Price, a noted young writer who hasn't spoken a word since being arrested for the killing of her boyfriend in a Gilded Age mansion in upstate New York five years ago, he has trouble deciphering it. The puzzle, an ancient work of Jewish mysticism, holds the key not only to Jess' innocence, but to saving humanity. Secret words contained in the puzzle, which Jess found hidden inside a 19th-century porcelain doll in the mansion, have the power “to change the relationship between humankind and our place in the universe.” People have died in pursuit of the doll, whose creator in 19th-century Prague killed himself after seeing those who commissioned it transformed into a fearsome golem. Under constant threat, Brink becomes obsessed with the puzzle and with freeing Jess, with whom he develops an eerie connection. One wishes that Trussoni had devoted a bit more attention to Jess, easily her most interesting character. That said, the author of Angelopolis (2013) and The Ancestor (2020) is at the top of her game in involving the reader in the puzzle-solving process, making the most of historic settings, including the Pierpont Morgan Library, and making the book's Da Vinci Code–like trappings pay off.
The Kabbalah meets the New York Times crossword in a brainy thriller.Pub Date: June 13, 2023
ISBN: 9780593595299
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.
The 25th novel featuring Silva’s legendary protagonist.
During his intersecting careers as art restorer and Israeli spy, Gabriel Allon has tangled with Russian gangsters and al-Qaida terrorists. He has become well-acquainted with operatives in multiple security agencies and befriended a paid assassin. He has busted art thieves and created passable forgeries by Renaissance masters and abstract Modernists. This latest installment centers around his relationship with the pope and a newly discovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci that has gone missing from the Vatican. Silva’s novels tend to fall into two categories: books that reflect the politics of the day and books that don’t. His latest is one of the latter, which could be a treat for readers looking for escape, but it falls flat for a variety of reasons. Luxury has always been part of Gabriel Allon’s universe. It used to be an aspect of tradecraft, though. Allon would be wearing a very expensive suit and driving a very expensive car because he was posing as a client at a Swiss bank. Here, his wife is hosting a catered lunch for 150 of their daughter’s classmates in their apartment overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice. What once felt like a scintillating peek into the world of the obscenely wealthy now just feels…kind of obscene. Similarly, Allon goes chasing after a missing painting as a civilian—he retired from Mossad in Portrait of an Unknown Woman (2022)—the same way another man his age might buy a speedboat or get hair plugs. As the story progresses, the stakes are raised, but it’s hard to forget that Allon is now a middle-aged man pursuing a dangerous hobby, rather than a spymaster leading his intrepid team to prevent a disaster that will disrupt the global order.
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780063384217
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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