Book #2 in the Zig & Nola series. Brad Meltzer is one of my favorite authors because he always keeps the story moving quickly and the clues elusive. His characters are intelligent and constantly evolving so there's no chance to get boring. Zig is a mortician and Nola an artist...or that's their cover stories. There's always a secret that needs to be uncovered to find the truth. Meltzer is an expert at keeping his fans happy.

A exciting read and should be a enjoyable read for many readers. The author's has a great way of engaging the reader and this story will not disappoint

I didn’t realize this was book 2 of a series when I requested it. Therefore I didn’t finish it.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. This is my honest review.

Brad Meltzer creates the best character driven series. I am a huge fan.
Zig and Nora are a great if not reluctant team. I also love the military tie in.
I will definitely read the next one in the series.

The second installment in the Zig and Nola series is 2 years after the last book. Zig realizes that he owes Nola his life, since she saved him last time they saw each other. Now, in this new book, Archie Mint is killed in his own home, and Zig and Nola are sucked into a deep secret that he was hiding. Additionally, there is more to be discovered about Nola's past life. Her twin brother, Roddy, makes an appearance, and of course, her nasty adoptive father, Royall.
As Nola and Zig chase down this mystery, their lives are once again put in danger, and they are not sure who they can trust. The surprising truth about Archie Mint and his family comes clear.
This is a thriller with a lot of killing. I would like the books more if there wasn't as much violence, and if they could be about 50 pages shorter!

So Zig and Nola are at it again!

Zig, the mortician, had retired from the Military base in Dover and headed to Pennsylvania to do the same, but more relaxing, job there. The stress at Dover was just too much. While living a more relaxed life of a couple years he gets a call from Dover to get up there and take care of Archie Mint before the funeral, so he does. At the funeral, he knows it is, but knows it can't be... Nola!

As usual, she doesn't want to be discovered or found, but as usual Zig isn't giving up! He wants to know why, after disappearing with no explanation, why is she here? He's the only one. Zig learns her twin brother is looking for her too. They team up to locate her and along the way they are discovering bits and pieces of her, her past, along with the main reason Zig was called here to begin with, Archie Mint. Seems Archie Mint isn't so mint after all and is definitely not the person who everybody, even his wife and kids, thought he was!

There's a few serious twists in there that I wasn't expecting, especially why Nola was there and trying to get so close.

I quite enjoyed this book, my first from author Brad Meltzer. The suspense and characters kept you wanting for more.

Brad Meltzer follows up 2008's The Escape Artist with another pairing of especially skilled mortician "Zig" Zigarowski and former Army artist Nola Brown - the "lightning rod" of the title - as they investigate the death of career Army officer Archie Mint, after Mint is killed in what is presumed to be a botched home invasion.

Zig is called out to do some reconstructive work on Mint's face, as that is one of the places he was shot, so there can be an open casket at the funeral, which is being held in a gym. Zig spots Nola, and wonders why she is there, while she spots Zig and wonders the same thing.

While preparing Mint, Zig noticed a few odd things, and this is what propels the mystery/thriller aspect.Zig starts nosing around and it leads him back to Dover Air Force Base, where he previously worked, preparing dead military personnel for their final trip home. He's also looking for Nola, to determine why she was at Mint's funeral.

We do get further character development of Nola, learning more about her, even as we're told she's been living off the grid for the past two years -after she and Sig investigated the events in The Escape Artist.

Nola's twin brother, now a police officer, also wants to find Nola. Actually, it seems everyone wants to get their hands on her, for good reasons and quite a number of not so good reasons. Ditto for Zig.

As they work their way into what is going on, the stakes get higher and higher until the revelations of the connections between all of the characters.

While the main body of the book is good, and captivating, if you're in a mind to ignore a few things and in the mood for a decent thriller. The same could not be said, at least for me, about the ending. I don't mind when series continue going - I am, as we all know, a huge fan of good series books - but this one just didn't settle well for me. It does appear there will be a third book at some point, and that book may answer some questions about this book's ending. Let's just hope it doesn't take four years to arrive.

Three and a half stars rounded up to four out of five stars.

Thanks to William Morrow and Custom House, and NetGalley for the reading copy.

Archie Mint was killed in his own home trying to stop a robbery. Mortician Zig Zigarowski is called in by the military to prepare the body. He discovers that Mint had criminal secrets in his life involving a top secret military unit. Zig starts an investigation of Mint’s murder and his connection to military artist Nola Brown, who has disappeared. Zig and Nola’s long-lost twin brother try to track her down because she knows too much about the secret facility and Mint’s connection to it. This complex story with lots of flashbacks is hard to follow. There are many twists and turns, but some of the action is too violent and improbable.

I’m thankful to the publishers for allowing me to read and review this book. I believe I requested this book through Scene of the Crime, and when I did, I didn’t realize it was the second book in the series. Being that I am late in reading and reviewing, I did not want to delay any longer to read the first book before this one. However if I could go back and do it again, I would. I had a hard time getting into the book because it was obvious that readers were expected to already have knowledge and vested interest in the characters, which I did not. However, once the story got under way, I don’t feel that it was a problem. I felt this book moved very quickly with lots of moving parts which helped eventually keep my attention and drive me to finish it. Without giving anything away, I really liked how the reader is led to think it was all one big related case, when in fact it was not. Very clever! Overall I enjoyed it and would be interested in reading more about Zig and Nola in the future. Also, on a separate note, kudos to Meltzer for adding just a couple brief mentions of COVID to keep it culturally relevant and timely without adding undue details to bog it down. Sooo many authors are adding a ton of unnecessary details about the pandemic and it feels like the whole world is beating a dead horse. I really appreciated just a sprinkle and not a focus. Thank you.

Excellent series.
Fast paced, keeps you up all night reading.
We’re getting to be told more about the characters, which makes them more likeable .
Well worth the time. I highly recommend.

At long last, bestselling author Brad Meltzer has followed up The Escape Artist! Meltzer says that when he pens a thriller, he starts with his own fears. Thus, the action begins on the very first page with a brazen robbery attempt by a valet who has a man's car keys and, instead of parking the car, uses the GPS to make his way to the man's home. The valet's plan goes horribly wrong and two men end up dead. Meanwhile, in Wonderly Square, Pennsylvania, Jim "Zig" Zigarowski, a highly skilled mortician, has spent the past two years working at Calta's Funeral Home after leaving his position at America's most secretive funeral home: Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. "There was too much pain -- too many old scars torn open from spending every day with dead young soldiers." But when his old boss, Wil-with-one-L, calls and asks Zig to work on a special case involving a lieutenant colonel who also worked at Dover, he agrees.

The body of Lieutenant Colonel Archie Mint, forty-eight years old, needs to be prepped so that his wife can have an open casket at the funeral service that is being held in the gymnasium of the elementary school that Zig's deceased daughter, Maggie, attended. In this volume, Meltzer digs deeper into what happened to Maggie and how her death impacted Zig and Maggie's mother, Charmaine, as well as how and why their marriage imploded in the aftermath. They've been divorced nearly fifteen years and Charmaine has made a new life for herself, teaching yoga and getting engaged to her boyfriend, Warren. She's done a much better job of moving on than Zig has. But in an emotionally resonant sub-plot, Zig and Charmaine work to solve a mystery concerning Maggie. Perhaps finding the answer will lead Zig one step closer to peace and acceptance of the loss of his beloved daughter.

As soon as Zig opens Mint's coffin, he realizes why his particular talents are needed. Mint was shot in the face and a mortician at Dover did an admirable job reconstructing his features, but the heat has caused the molding clay to melt. Mint's wife reveals that he was in the reserves only -- he never worked at Dover, as Zig was led to believe. And there are scratches on the back of Mint's hand that were not noted in the report. Zig senses something is wrong, but he doesn't know what it is, nor did he realize that he was followed from his home that morning. He decides to stay for the funeral service. And as he is standing in the back of the gymnasium where he can maintain a view of the gathered mourners, he observes a woman. It's Nola Brown, the woman who once saved Maggie's life at Girl Scout Camp and, two years ago, saved Zig's life, as well. What is she doing at the funeral for Mint? As she slips out of the building, she is followed. Why?

The Lightning Rod is another propulsive, suspenseful thriller full of twists and shocking plot developments. Zig is the empathetic, principled, and highly trained mortician Meltzer introduced in The Escape Artist who talks to the corpses he works on and, because of his ability to spot clues others might miss, gets pulled into another mystery. Zig has spent the past two years rebuilding his life, seeking solace, and Nola's reappearance jeopardizes his safety, as well as the normalcy and routines he has established. He soon figures out that Mint was actually part of a top-secret military unit and had a connection to Nola, who has been living off the grid for the past two years. Nola is stealthy, resourceful, and resilient. Nola is the lightning rod: trouble finds her. And she does not want to be found, but Zig knows how to lure her, using her twin brother, Roddy LaPointe, a police officer. They haven't seen each other since they were seven years old, twenty-one years ago. In this installment, Meltzer reveals more about the endlessly fascinating Nola's background and history, as well as the ways she navigates to keep herself safe and untraceable. She served as the Army's Artist-in-Residence and creates drawings for the same reasons others take notes. Her observational skills enable her to include details in her sketches, into which she channels her "exquisite rage," that can be used to track down answers. She spots Zig at Mint's funeral and, like him, wonders what he is doing there, drawing everything she saw in order to puzzle out answers. She never liked Zig, who "always looked at her with pity in his eyes, like she was someone he was there to rescue," making her feel twelve years old again. Roddy's presence confirms for Nola that he knows the truth about Mint, but Meltzer keeps readers guessing about Roddy's character, motives, and alliances. "We all have a person we were and a person we are. It's never a straight line between the two -- and it's certainly never a predictable one. Just because you read the first few chapters doesn't mean you know everything that's coming. Keep an open mind. If you're lucky, there's a plot twist."

Meltzer keeps the action moving at a rapid-fire, unrelenting pace as the story careens toward its unpredictable conclusion. He is known for the extensive and meticulous research he conducts in order to draft his novels. He learned that the U.S. government maintains a dozen secret warehouses around the country to deal with bioterrorism. They are all situated in locations near airports so that, in case of an attack, antidotes can be transported within a couple of hours. Meltzer uses that information to concoct a complex yet believable story involving Grandma's Pantry, a Cold War-era campaign that was designed to convince American families that, in case of nuclear attack, they should store up at least seven days' worth of food and water. In the late 1990's, the focus switched to pharmaceuticals when bioterrorism became the dominant threat. Zig discovers that something happened in one of those secret warehouses five years ago, and Meltzer sets a final harrowing sequence of events in one of them.

Sharp, clever dialogue, fully developed characters, a tautly-constructed plot in which nothing turns out to be as it initially seemed, and nonstop action make The Lightning Rod an entertainingly worthy follow-up to The Escape Artist. A jaw-dropping final discovery and development leave the door open for more adventures featuring Zig and Nola that Meltzer is, happily, already drafting.

Zigarowski or "Zig" as he is better known is a mortician with special skills in preparing the bodies of fallen soldiers.  When he is brought in to take care of the body of Archie Mint a string of events sends him on the trail of Nola Brown, the woman who had saved his life. What is the link between Zola and Archie Mint? Why is Zola's brother after her? Better yet, why is Zola avoiding her brother?

This story is a high action military thriller. The book can be read as a stand alone but I think that it is best read after The Escape Artist. In my opinion, there is a lot of violence for the sake of violence in the book.

Book 2 of the Zig and Nola series. Great follow up book. I think I liked it better than the first one. Always a fan of Brad Meltzer. A real page turner. Hope its less than 4 years for the next installment.

Thank you to William Morrow for an ecopy of The Lightning Rod.
If you like a good Military thriller, you will enjoy this book. This is the second book in the series, and although I didn't read the first, I was able to connect with the characters and didn't have any trouble jumping in to book #2.

I am really enjoying this series! Talk about unique characters!!! Nola is unlike most main characters we read about and I love finding out little details from her past as the story progresses. I can’t remember ever reading about a mortician before and adding in Zig’s military history and all that secretiveness makes this cast a very memorable one.

As with most of Meltzer’s books there’s not a whole lot that I can say without spoiling the entire plot! The synopsis really does a good job at skimming the surface without giving away too much.

I have to say this plot line didn’t pull me in as quickly as the first, but it was still very good. There were quite a few new cast introduced and it was a little hard to kept up.

I would absolutely recommend this series to Meltzer’s fans of course but also fans of mystery/thrillers/action.

I haven't read Brad Meltzer for a while and while the storyline initially hooked me and Zig's background was intriguing...it wasn't enough to hold my interest past the first few chapters. Thank you Netgalley.

Zig and Nola are back in the follow up to The Escape Artist. Zig left his job at Dover and started work in a funeral home. When an Army Colonel is murdered, Dover asks Zig to come prepare the body for the funeral. Zig is suspicious because some things aren't adding up and secrets are being kept. When he runs into Nola's twin brother Roddy and then he sees Nola at the funeral, he can't help but get involved.

This is another fun, fast paced thriller from Brad Meltzer. The pacing is excellent and the characters continue growing and we get to learn even more about Zig and Nola. You should definitely read The Escape Artist first, which I also recommend. If you like fast paced thrillers, this is definitely for you!

My thanks to William Morrow, author Brad Meltzer, and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book. My opinions are my own.

This book was so good! I want to see more from this author in the future!! I couldn't put this book down. What a page turner!!!

A complex and convoluted plot with lots of characters. Much violence and bloody murders. Characters are fairly well developed and interesting. I stopped reading part way in but went back to it. Maybe worth the time.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an e ARC of this book.