THE PUZZLE MASTER

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.