From the opening pages of this book, I was unable to put it down. It grabbed me right from the beginning and kept me engaged and guessing right until the very end.

It tells the story of a mortician working at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, who recognizes one of the corpses that arrives in the mortuary -- it was a childhood friend of his late daughter. Or so he thought. The corpse was actually a body double -- supposedly the girl he knew as a child but a different woman. From that point, he gets wrapped up in solving a mystery to determine who this person is, and that leads into a conspiracy that goes right up to the President of the United States.

Read this book! You won't be disappointed!

Bestselling author Brad Meltzer's writing has reached a new level of excellence with The Escape Artist.

The character of Nola Brown is fascinating -- mysterious, calculating, desperate, and incredibly clever and resourceful. The story begins with a plane crash and a mystery -- the dead woman pulled from the wreckage was Nola. Wasn't she? And if Nola didn't die in the crash, who did? Why? And what is Nola running from?

Jim "Zig" Zigarowski, a forensic pathologist at Dover Air Force Base -- where the bodies of military personnel are brought for identification and readied for burial -- is convinced that the dead woman can't be Nola, a childhood friend of his own deceased daughter. Zig is haunted by his only child's death and determined to find out why the U.S. Army seems determined to make it seem as though Nola, its artist-in-residence died in the crash. But Zig is not a trained investigator and his forays into finding answers are fraught with danger and near-misses. Meltzer contrasts Zig's naivete with Nola's cunning to exquisite result. The U.S. Army's secret can be traced all the way back to Harry Houdini. They just need to work together, staying alive long enough to follow the clues and discover the truth. The action never slows, the cast of supporting characters is as intriguing as the two main players, and the result is a perfectly entertaining adventure founded upon obscure trivia brought to life through Meltzer's imaginative story-telling.

When a military plane crashes Ian Alaska, they bodies go to the Dover facility for prep. Zig recognizes the name of one of the dead but it isn’t really her, starting a whirlwind series of events. ARC from NetGalley.

Another entertaining thriller/mystery from Meltzer. He's consistently good, writing gripping novels populated by engaging characters. Definitely recommended if you're looking for some escapist reading.

An absolute page turner burning with suspense. I blazed through this one. Two fascinating characters in a mortician and Sergeant Nola Brown. Their lives cross and intersect in more ways than one. The strength of story was very powerful.

I work for a digital media company and I am currently writing a blog for someone and it includes book reviews. My client will be publishing in his name.

Zig, a mortician for the government at a facility outside of Washington, has been mourning the loss of his teen daughter for 10 years. When Zig realizes that the woman whom he is working on is not the person whom the government says she is and whom he believes he has a history, he takes it on to discover the reasons for the government's deception. The stretch in the narrative is a bit hard to believe.

When someone's dying, their face betrays every thought, their filter is gone, their eyes like a flip-book of passions and sentiments, each fully formed thought a bolt of electricity whistling through their synapses. On your deathbed, life may very well pass before your eyes, and so does your reaction to it.

Jim "Zig" Zwicharowski is good at what he does. A mortician for the government, more specifically the service men and women that come home for the final time. He knows how important it is to have the answers for the death and to preserve the dignity of the human body. However, it gets very personal when a body comes to Dover sergeant Nola Brown. A childhood friend of his deceased daughter. One that he remembers fondly and at the same time is haunted by that memory. A plan crash that took a handful of Washington connections and service men/women down. What caused the accident? Was it accident? When he discovers a note inside the mouth of Nola Brown, he knows something is terribly wrong. One being that the body is not Nola Brown and someone wants her dead. Something sinister is going on.

A thriller of connect the dots and the workings of the government that is unseen and unheard, Zig and Nola work together to find out the why and whom can you trust. All the makings of a page turner thriller.

A Special Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review

Review featured at www.books-n-kisses.com

One of my favorite things about Meltzer’s books is the trueness in them and this one is not different. However what is different in this one is the sadness that I felt. This book shows how our US Soldiers are treated when their bodies return.

The suspense is very high in this book and what I loved (and hated) was each chapter made me want to turn the page and start the next chapter. Very few books anymore give me that “oh just one more chapter” feel but this one did. Each chapter ended with just enough of a cliffhanger that I had to read on.

Meltzer is amazing and this book proves it.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Brad Meltzer's newest offering, The Escape Artist, will seem very familiar to Meltzer's fans. Meltzer is known for political conspiracies, "could it be true" historical background, breathless action, and convoluted plot twists. The Escape Artist has it all.

The best thing about The Escape Artist is Nola, an artist with a troubled past and an almost supernatural gift of observation. She uses her skills as the Army's artist in residence. When she dies in a plane crash, the Army coroner happens to be the father of one of Nola's Girl Scout friends. He recognizes that this corpse is not Nola, and the chase to figure out the truth digs him in deeper than he could have expected.

Nola's character is so troubled and so gifted, she deserves her own series. In The Escape Artist, she shows not only her artistic skills, but also her survival and combat skills. Throughout the book, Meltzer flashes back to Nola's childhood. She was sold to a malicious man as a child; his monstrous, abusive behavior toward Nola shaped her into a killer. Her art was her only escape.

As is his style, Meltzer's story is totally implausible. He twists the reader around, taking a long time to reveal who the bad guys and good guys are, and who was that corpse from the plane crash? He throws in a lot of historical information about a secret group of spies, enough to make you wonder, "How much of this is really true?" Probably some of it. . . . The good thing about Meltzer is that even though you might roll your eyes at the plot twists and unbelievable story elements, his books are still fun to read. Pop up the popcorn and dive in.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

I loved the action, the characters and the twists and turns. I did not love the unbalanced feel of the storyline. Brad Metzler introduced new characters and Nola is a peach, quite complex and layered. The action sequences in this story were plentiful and at times a bit unrealistic, which made the storyline seem uneven. The story is not woven as tightly as I would have liked. I found my\self rereading at times because there were plot holes I couldnt reconcile. It was entertaining and perhaps the story suffered from being combined with the series set up, so I'd like to read another Nola book before I make any decisions on the series.

I've heard of Brad Meltzer, but had never read any of his books. "The Escape Artist" was my first. This fast paced thriller did not dissapoint. It deals with issues that are timely to today and keeps you wanting to turn the page. I wasn't a fan of some of the violence but see how it adds to the point if the book. This would probably make a good movie. I highly recommend it to fans of thrillers.
I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

With a multi decade career as a young adult/children’s librarian, I was familiar with author Brad Meltzer ‘s biographies for young people, but I had never read one of his thrillers for adults. So, The Escape Artist, book one in a possible new series, seemed a great place to start.

The novel kept my interest with nonstop action and interesting settings but the characterization and plot were not completely developed. So I had mixed feelings about the book. It was good but not great. If violence and gore and sometimes abusive characters are not your cup of tea, this book has plenty and it is not the book for you. But, it was suspenseful and did keep me guessing till the end about some plot lines that were resolved and some that were not.

This new series will be based on a character, Nola Brown. Ironically, however, as the novel opens, it appears that Nola Brown is dead.

At least—officially...... Her body was found among others after a plane crash of a plane that left a secret base in Alaska. Her commanding officer confirms Nola’s death, as does the United States government, as does the boss of another main character, Jim Zigarowski, who is a mortician at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. So the body has been triple confirmed as that of Nola Brown.

There’s just one problem.

Nola Brown isn’t dead. . .

Zigarowski, spends each day with fallen troops. His job goes far beyond conducting autopsies. The bodies that arrive at Dover often need special expertise in order to be pieced back together to look as their loved ones will remember them. And Zig cares about honoring those who have served their country as well as offering those loved ones claiming the body closure in seeing a body as close to normal like they would remember them..

Zig knows all too well how important closure is as he lost his only child at a young age in a horrible accident. So when bodies come in missing limbs, Zig works his magic. And Zig purposely signs up to work on Nola’s body because she once saved his daughter’s life when they were young and the memory of his daughter overshadows his daily life.

But as he gets to work repairing the body, Zig quickly realizes it’s not Nola. It can’t be because he remembers an injury from that rescue that is not on the body he is working on.. He’s able to confirm this by running the deceased’s fingerprints. But why, he wonders, would someone try to pawn this body off as Nola Brown? And other bodies on the plane have strange names of long dead associates of the famous magician Harry Houdini.

Surely, it couldn’t be an accident. The triple-check system is in place for this very reason. Determined to get answers, Zig starts investigating and finds a secret message inside the body intended for Nola telling her that she’s in serious danger.

Zig decides to risk everything in order to try and find Nola so he can deliver the hidden message. After all, she did once save his daughter’s life. Zig eventually discovers a centuries-old conspiracy that can be traced all the way back to the world’s most famous escape artist of all time: Harry Houdini. A conspiracy that the President of the United States is taking a special interest in.

Enough said.... After all—a thriller doesn’t thrill if too much of the plot is given away.

Thank you Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader’s Copy of this novel and for allowing me to review it.

This book is a thrill ride from beginning to end. I love that the author throws in twists and turns at every angle so you never know who to actually trust. Due to the sometimes graphic descriptions of violence and the somewhat rare swearing, I'd have to say I'd personally recommend this for mid-teens and up. It's a great thriller though. If you're looking for action that keeps you on your toes, this is the right place. I can only hope we'll be seeing more of Zig.

I would like to thank the publisher, author, and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book takes place very near my house. In Dover, DE there is a place where the fallen go for them to get special treatment before their families bury them. "Zig" is known to be one of the best and can put someone back together so their family can give them the burial they wish. When a body comes in with a name he recognizes this one hits close to home and he must make sure she is taken care of completely. But things aren't as they seem and he is swept up into government lies, secrets and some drama from the past.

As told above, the body that comes into his building isn't the one from his past and through an interesting note he puts himself into the investigation. I love political mysteries. Especially ones that involve the government and special projects. Reading these books make me think I am reading something I shouldn't and maybe I am learning something that isn't public knowledge!

This book was just ok in my opinion. I liked the idea of what was going on, but the execution didn't always work for me. There were quite a few times where the story was just dragging and the pacing just didn't work for me. So I liked the content just not how it was presented.

Out of Brad Meltzer's big collection of books, I have only read two, so I am not going to count him out, but I may think twice before reading the next one.

I've read many of Brad Meltzer's books, and I always enjoy them. This wasn't one of my favorites, but it was still good. I liked the character Zig, but I'm not sure he portrayed Nola accurately. I would like to see more of both these characters, especially Zig

Dover, Delaware - the fir st stateside stop for America's fallen military heroes - is the unlikely setting for best-selling author Brad Meltzer' s newest thriller, and Zig Zigarowski, a middle-aged mortician, his equally unlikely protagonist. When the body of a female soldier who died in a mysterious plane crash
in Alaska turns up in Zig' s receiving mortuary, he realizes that it doesn't match her identifying records; he knows the woman she's supposed to be, and it's not her. The Nola Jones Zig knew had a distinctive injury incurred when she saved his teenage daughter's life, but, this one doesn't , and there are a number of other things about the situation that lead Zig into a labyrinth of secrets emanating from the highest office in the country. But by the time the conspiracy to substitute a stranger's body for a missing soldier is unearthed and the real Nola turns up, very much alive, the plot has lost what little energy it has. Not one of this author's best outings.

A fine entertainment that falls a bit short on the conspiracy plot line. A flight from Alaska crashes and a mortician at a military base realizes one of the bodies was switched. Finding out why unravels a conspiracy, secret government organization based on magic and Houdini as its namesake. Follow the money and that's what this ragtag group does. A fast read with some twists and turns with some cinematic scenes of destruction.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

Meltzer’s latest seems to be ripped from today’s headlines as a worker at Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base uncovers corruption at the highest levels. Jim “Zig” Zigarowski works on bodies at the Dover Air Force Base, readying them for burial. When assigned to work on the body of Nola Brown, a victim of a plane crash, Zig’s memories resurface as he recalls how Nola saved his daughter Maggie from an explosion at a camp fire when the two were Girl Scouts years ago.

But Zig knows for certain that Nola’s left ear was damaged during the accident at the campfire years before. And this Nola whose body he is viewing shows no evidence of having a damaged ear.

Zig is determined to find out exactly whose body is lying on the table in front of him. As he obtains the fingerprints of the deceased woman, he has those prints run against the ones the military has on file for Nola.

Upon discovering that the body does not belong to Nola, Zig begins a quest to find out why the military is determined to prove that Nola is dead and why she is not only alive but on the run.

Pulse-pounding suspense fills the pages of this read that will keep the reader guessing until the final pages are turned. Meltzer lures the reader into his expertly crafted plot line while unearthing the pasts of his protagonists, revealing the life-changing events that shaped their lives.

Brad Meltzer's The Escape Artist has been on my to-read list for quite some time. I've enjoyed reading his Culper Ring series and expected this title to be a thrilling, high energy read with a nugget of American history that makes the reader wonder what other conspiracies our government could be hiding. The Escape Artist did not disappoint.

The Escape Artist introduces us to a civilian mortician, Jim Zigarowski BKA Zig. Zig gets word that a body has been shipped to the morgue bearing the same name of a young girl from his past. A young girl that saved his daughter's life at a Girls' Scout meeting. Feeling it's his duty to make her look perfect in death after her plunge from a crashing plane, he suddenly realizes the girl he once knew is not the corpse. The note he find in the body of the fallen checks his concern into high-gear. Determined to find her, Zig embarks on a dangerous mission that no mortician is equipped to handle.

Enter Nola Brown. Once upon a time she was the young girl who saved Zig's daughter. Today she stands as a hard-ass, killing machine that's determined to find the answers to why the plane went down that was carrying her friend, as well as who's behind the conspiracy. Eventually she and Zig join forces to see what's what.

So...

The Escape Artist was what I hoped it would be. Fast paced, unrelenting, engaging, and interesting... at least for a while hence my 3 star rating. Initially finding out the mystery of Nola and what is really going on is gripping. The pages couldn't turn fast enough for me. I had to know who Nola was and who she was running from. What is the mystery. And what the hell does Harry Houdini have to do with it?

As the novel unfolds and more revelations of their pasts are revealed, I still felt a bit unsatisfied. Both Zig and Nola have such rich stories that deserved to be expounded on a bit more. Especially Nola's. The mystery of the plane crash couldn't hold a candle to her home life. Yes Meltzer shifts between the girl Nola once was and the woman she's become, I couldn't help being more interested in the former. Even with adolescent Nola being as paper-thin as she was, I couldn't help but want a little more development.

Overall, The Escape Artist fits the bill for anyone who's looking for a fast read. Despite the 3-star rating Brad Metlzer doesn't disappoint. All the boxes are checked for a high-octane thriller. I'm definitely looking forward to his next read.

Copy provided by Grand Central Publishing via Netgalley