If you can get the TV voiceover out of your head after reading this, then you are doing better than I. This book is entertaining, gives the reader more than one potential laugh and does make you stop and think about some of the crazy ideas people come up with when the truth is not so obvious, but I still can't get that voiceover out of my head.

As books on conspiracy theories go, this one isn't bad. It presents the reader with multiple explanations rather than just sticking with the favourite of the author and doesn't really form any solid conclusions as each theory wraps up. This book reads like a transcript from "Decoded," and sometimes that is a bit odd. There is no lack of tropes in this book, that is for certain.

Still, if you find that you are one of those people like myself who are constantly curious about what other people think about major events in the world, this will give you a quick thrill. Overall, I found this to be an entertaining break from more serious non-fiction.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

I enjoyed his series on the History channel and this book takes a look at some of the conspiracies that were featured on the show.
Interesting and thought provoking.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

So I’m not a huge follower/avid reader of Brad Meltzer, but I have read a book or two of his and I have seen a couple of episodes of the Decoded TV series. He seems like a guy who does his research and doesn’t fall (too much) into sensationalistic garbage. I was hoping that “The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time: Decoding History's Unsolved Mysteries” would provide some in-depth analysis of some of the biggest mysteries and conspiracies out there. I was wrong, I think that this book provided even less detail than most of the TV shows, and the inclusion of some of the chapters stretches the definition of conspiracy.

The 10 conspiracies covered focus mainly on the US, and mostly on the 20th century. Each conspiracy is described, a theory is put forward, and then we move on to the next one. The ten are:

* Was John Wilkes Booth cornered and killed? Maybe.
* What happened to the Confederate Gold? Don’t know.
* Who built and what are the Georgia Guidestones? Don’t know.
* Who was DB Cooper? There’s one possibility explored.
* Why is the White House Cornerstone missing? Don’t know.
* Where is the true Spear of Destiny? Don’t know.
* Did DaVinci hide messages in his work? Yes, but so did all artists of that time.
* Is there gold in Fort Knox? Don’t know.
* Did a UFO crash in Roswell? Don’t know.
* And of course the JFK Assassination. Probably lone gunman.

It felt like there were very few new elements or angles put forward, and there was little discussion around any deviation from the most common theory. Anyone interested in any of these events probably knows more than what was discussed here, anyone who’s seen the TV show has seen all of this information already. And are these truly conspiracies? According to Google, a conspiracy is “a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. Just because the White House cornerstone is lost doesn’t make it a conspiracy . Having multiple medieval forgeries of the Spear of Destiny isn’t a conspiracy.

I guess I was expecting more.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from Workman Publishing Company via NetGalley. Thank you!

As an aside, since this is an electronic ARC I try not to get too critical about formatting issues, but the Kindle version of this book is atrocious – words are cut in half with paragraphs of unrelated text in between, pictures are missing or mislabeled, captions are off in the middle of other pages, etc. I believe that the hard copy of the book contains facsimiles of documents, that would make this a more interesting read.

Meltzer and his team deliver AGAIN! Working with his colleagues of History Channel's "Decoded", Meltzer tackles some of the greatest mysteries of our time. Examining each of 'the 10 greatest' unsolved stories, it is easy to see what captivates the public based upon the evidence (or lack of evidence) of each tale and shows that what we don't know can be as important as what we do know.

Wow! This book was amazing! The writing was extremely captivating and drew me in from the beginning and held my attention to the end. Each chapter was fascinating and well written. The illustrations were sometimes hard to see, but that could be the quality of download.

In 'The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time', Brad Meltzer presents to us what he considers to be the most interesting cases from his television series Decoded.
Meltzer and Ferrell use a language reminiscent of the voice-over, present blurry images as ‘Exhibits’, and focus on one or two theories (except for the JFK chapter) before offering a blank conclusion. The authors clearly do not aim at solving the conspiracies, but rather at offering possible answers which support their findings. Also, they keep from exhaustive research of alternate theories as well as from intertwining the cases. These are short explorations of large cases (such as the assassinations of A. Lincoln and J.F. Kennedy, the contents (of Fort Knox and Area 51, the Spear of Destiny, and the works of Leonardo da Vinci) with a blatant ‘entertainment only’ goal.
'The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time' is a holiday read, or a travel one. A book born of popular television, but not from scientific documentaries.

Who would like this
This is a book for curious minds who read for fun, have a bit of time, and have sometimes wondered about any of the cases presented.

Who should give this a pass
Any serious reader of conspiracies, or with an extensive background in history and research, will find this book a frustrating tease rather than an actual tool. For such audiences, finding the original programme episode would be more appropriate.

Conclusions and suggestions
Meltzer and Ferrell have produced a volume which recreates Meltzer’s great entertainment achievement, Decoded. That’s what it is, that’s what you get. It’s an easy read that can be followed by all audiences, away from any real controversy or intellectual strain. It also refrains from exploring the more current conspiracies that would pop up in any documentary website tab.
'The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time' are mostly cases from the United States of America, which is to be expected considering the viewership of the original programme. For a non-American, some of these ‘great conspiracies’ are more ‘curious cases’, not quite justified by the title as opposed other suspected conspiracies worldwide we’d expect to find. It thus has a clear readership, outside of which the audience will simply turn pages, scanning and skimming for the interesting bits (i.e., the texts on the sides, or around the images/’exhibits’) without caring for the rest of the narrative.
Again, this is not a bad book. It is simply quite vanilla, for its bombastic title which would be more accurate as 'The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of Decoded', instead.

An interesting read and some excellent theories into several mysteries. For those interested into this genre of books, it is a great read.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I'm not usually one to read about conspiracy theories, but I have always found them interesting to browse through. Meltzer gives us a good overview and details and about various cases, mostly throughout U.S. history with the exception of a couple. The book was a pretty quick read and Meltzer throws in quite a few interesting and lesser known theories about these cases. I don't know how informative this would be for someone who is well-versed in this subject, but for the casual reader this is a perfect book to learn more about these popular conspiracies.

I always love books by Brad Meltzer. He has a way to tell a story. It was neat to see some of the many conspiracies from differing perspectives. I highly recommend this book.

Great introduction to some great possible conspiracies. You hear things about some of these, and don't know what to believe. Obviously, whole books have been written on each of these, but this gives you a quick look at several conspiracies. It was more than enough for me, but could lead someone to search for more in depth books on these. And nothing is better than the search for more knowledge.

Brad Meltzer is one of my favorite authors! This book is a look back at his TV series from a few years ago. Not much added detail but he always writes in an interesting way for me!

Brad Meltzer is the conspiracy theorist king. This book explores 10 of the ones that have haunted us for years. His topics include some of the most fascinating: the Kennedy assassination and the many theories about it, a large and mysterious structure in Georgia, the Lincoln assassination and John Wilkes Booth, the Masons, the cornerstones of the U.S. Capital and the Whitehouse, aliens, etc. If you have read his books, like conspiracy theories or like to see them debunked or explained you will enjoy this book. There are many learning moments included with the conspiracy theories, lots of neat illustrations and historical trivia and truths. For those of you who are not familiar with Brad Meltzer he is involved in a popular tv show that also examines these theories and is the writer of many fiction books based on some of them. His fiction is an enjoyable read and I like his writing style. as he combines history, conspiracy theories, likeable characters, and neat plots. This book is similar but most enjoyable as well.
Thanks NetGalley# for the opportunity to read and review this book..

There's a conspiracy going on, and that's for sure – practically all the alleged conspiracies on these pages, and featured in the tie-in TV programme, are American. Yes, it must clearly be a secretive global government of lizard people that demand all such conspiracies be provided for the entertainment of Americans, and the rest of the world can go hang. Dyatlov Pass? Too Russian, and while one of the creepiest alleged happenings the world knows, not American enough. But the good thing is that, while America can provide for some crackpot ideas, it can also provide for some cracking presentations of such crackpot ideas.

I'd not known of many of these legends and ideas before now – their fault for being from the New World, of course. I didn't know John Wilkes Booth was supposed to have lived for years after shooting Lincoln in the bonce – but despite some dubious photographic evidence ("this looks the spit of him" – "yes, but this is not his contemporary by about thirty years") I was suitably intrigued by the evidence presented that he did manage to find a second life. As for some mystical cabal squirrelling away gold for the Confederate cause at the end of the Civil War – well, you won't get me on that one. The very idea stashes of treasure would still be intact when so few people knew of their whereabouts ("only myself and old Bill Willox from the old house across the creek knows where the treasure I'm guarding is, so I'm just going to leave it intact until I die, because I know that while I want it the political cause I might have followed had it not died out a century ago is going to want it someday, and I'm never ever going to help myself…") is just rubbish, whatever the efforts of modern people finding clues where there are none might imply.

As for the book, it's pretty much not a conspiracy to say it's a great presentation. If anything, the picture research, with its attendant visual selection and multiple captions, is a little too distracting, but the storytelling is fine, even if it does at times too suddenly veer from what happened back then (allegedly) to what happened when the documentary series was made.

But what I also really, really liked about the book was the scope, despite my jibe about it being American, in that it hit on conspiracies my limited Fortean knowledge had never come across, and the way it treats them. Thoughts on the Spear of Destiny (and the ultimate location of just one many alleged to be that) are matched by the fact that it's bloody worrying people still believe in it as a totemic, magical emblem, and the same could almost be said to be true about the gold that I am now thinking is NOT in Fort Knox. So, although some of the testimony in the Roswell/Area 51/aliens in general chapter is about as convincing as Elon Musk's ambition to become an alien to some other species, this was one of the best books I've read on this kind of subject in I don't know how long.

What I got from these pages was the perfect frisson I desired – I'd never heard of the Georgia Guidestones, and having them and more presented to me so succinctly (I love the JFK conspiracies, but would never want to read a whole book devoted to them) was right up my street. This was one of the most fun books I can remember reading this year.

Free ARC from Net Galley

Surprise, I enjoyed this book and you will too!

WAIT, disclaimer; you will enjoy if you are not a tinfoil everything is a lie reader. If you are not Meltzer surprises by not claiming expertise or the "real" solution but in his trademark style gives good research and draws more possibilities than conclusions.

Entertaining book. I enjoy reading conspiracy theories in general but what sets this book apart from the multitude of conspiracy theory books on the bargain rack at Barnes & Noble is that this one is well written. It gives multiple possible explanations and alternate theories for the top 10 theories it lists. If you’re reading this review with a tinfoil hat on so the aliens steal your thoughts this is not the book for you. If you’re unfamiliar with conspiracy theories and a little curious then I’d recommend this book.
Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for giving me this book in exchange for an honest review.

#The10GreatestConspiraciesofAllTime #NetGalley

I‘ve enjoyed several of Meltzers books in the past so was excited to find this one. I love digging deep into conspiracy theories. I have a list of almost 100 of them on my phone that I like to explore when I’m bored. While this book doesn’t prove, nor disprove, any of the theories presented it does outline the case very well. The one I was least familiar with was the Georgia Guidestones which I keep looking up.

I LOVE Brad Meltzer’s thrillers! While I am not into conspiracy theories, Meltzer provides history lessons presented with thorough research. I enjoyed learning about historical events I had never even heard of before! My favorites were the John Wilkes Booth and JFK Assassination, I thought I had known about these events, but Meltzer blew my knowledge away!

I love conspiracy theories, not quite sure why, just find them greatly entertaining. And I’ve heard about Meltzer, so when this book turned up on Netgalley, I figured I’ll check it out. And sure enough, fun was had. Albeit qualified sort of fun. Meltzer is quite a character, his bio itself reads like one of his books and his books read like those popular historical based or at least inspired mysteries that often climb to the top on the bestseller lists. And then he also does nonfiction of the same flavor and tv presentations. This book is essentially a reader’s digest’s style adaptation of his show Decoded. In fact, the chapters read very much like scripts. They are meant to grab your attention. It requires a very specific sort of energy and uses phrases like…What if I someone told you…followed by a doozy of a scenario that Meltzer and his intrepid team of investigators sets off to investigate. So as a result this book reads kind of like…National Treasure the movie. Not just the same manic energy of the movie, but in fact the very same manic energy of the every manically energetic Nicholas Cage. Cage can totally do this show, I bet. Then again he’d probably end up trying to buy some of these treasures. Anyway...thing is, it’s fun. National Treasure was fun. Sure, it’s speculative, but there seem to be an actually good amount of research going into the proof or debunking of this tall and otherwise tales. And it is ever so entertaining to speculate and ever so easy to imagine the government lying to is people. Especially nowadays, it’s practically de rigueur. Though to be fair, it’s nothing new, only now technology has made it so much easier, thanks Twitter and co. So 10 greatest conspiracies seem to be selected by the readers or show watchers, which is to say eight of them are all from American’s past and only two go internationally. And they are most or all (depends of how much you’re into this sort of thing) are familiar sounding, from aliens to assassinations. But still, it was interesting to check out the research that went into this trademark decoding (boy does he love this word) and check out different takes and ideas of the well known scenarios. In the end, it’s probably one of those things where those who wants to believe do and those on the opposite side of the spectrum will find a way not to and facts will only matter so much. But for all those inbetweeners, people who can actually be swayed by facts and research, people who might not take a stand, but actively question things…well, then, read this book and experiment in uncertainty. Yes, it’s popscience and yes it is at times dumbed down for the general population and has a very aha, what do you think of this, check this out, jump out pf the bushes and yell surprise kind of blatant reader grabs, but stunt tactics aside, there is enough meat on these bones to warrant your time. It isn’t even that much time, the book is relatively short and reads quickly. It has a terrific amount of photos too. That was actually the main detractor for me in reading this as an ARC, due to the large amount of supplemental materials (photos, etc.) the book was horrendously disorientingly misformated. Normally I love photos in nonfiction books and this one actually had an excellent amount of those, but for some reason it crippled the digital advance copy version and really affected the reading enjoyment of this book. I never understand why publishers do that. The goal of these promo copies, much like with any sample, is to gather early reviews and get some buzz and demand going for whatever you’re selling, so wouldn’t you want to present the best possible version of your product? Why make the readers go through the labyrinths of crap formats? Yes, it’s free, but sometimes it isn’t even worth it. Plus it detracts from the reading experience and can affect the overall review. Where’s the logic is that? Seriously…what gives? Much like most conspiracy theories out there…it remains a mystery. So maybe wait to read the properly formatted version of this book. But other than that, fun was had, definitely. Thanks Netgalley.

Why are we so obsessed by significant historical events, even those that appear to have been solved? Who hasn’t puzzled what really happened to JFK. Did a strange and lonely loser really manager to kill the president of the United States on his own, or did he have help? What about Area 51? Most of us laugh off the ideas of the government hiding a crashed space ship and alien remains. But the questions remain because that base seems to have more security than the White House. My father-in-law told me when he was stationed at a nearby base, he made a joke about Area 51 and was told to never speak of the site again. Ridiculous, silly? Maybe, but as humans we want to find order in chaos and until we do, we will always find conspiracies to puzzle over, real or not