If complex puzzles, conspiracies, and over-the-top helicopter scenes are all your jam - then THIS is definitely the book for you! It didn't have a large cast of characters so it was easy to keep track of everyone and their role. It was fast moving, so you were constantly on to the next stage of the mystery with little pause. The only pause points you do get are adorable ones in the form of Connie, the MC's adorable pup. Those moments of walks, feeds and scratches were the good distractions from the intense story.

But, for all the adventures and layers of mystery, I just did not feel myself pulled in to the story. I didn't like the MC, I found him frustrating. I found the religious elements interesting but the long winded stories of porcelain were too much. All in all, interesting but just not my thing.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

The Puzzle Master is an interesting concept for a story. Mike Brink was in an accident that resulted in a traumatic brain injury which gave him a rare mental super power. He gains the ability to solve even the hardest of puzzles. He gets a call from a prison ask him to help with an inmate and everything changes for him. Mike meets Jess Price, who goes him a puzzle that he can't solve immediately. He believes to key to Jess's case will be revealed once he solves the mystery. Solving this puzzle leads him into unknown territory and danger. I loved the first half of the book. I was pulled in immediately and had to know what was going to happen but then it started to drag. It also got very weird and convoluted to the point were I just wanted it to be over. Unfortunately, this one just had too many different things happening for me.

This is one of those books that is getting a lot of hype, but I find is left wanting. It’s a complicated storyline designed around futuristic life while connecting with complicated dealings with past puzzles. IT’s searching for the meaning of life. I found it to be a lot of slight of hand and with aspects of the story that made me feel like the author wants me to believe the unbelievable just to make the story work. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the read.

I’d say for me this was a 3.5 star, but I rounded up to 4. I found it a little confusing, my brain doesn’t work like a puzzle master. The plot takes the reader on a wild race across time and places. Some of the characters were quite interesting and some just plain creepy. I guess it isn’t really my genre, but I was glad to read it.

[Blurb goes here]

Mike Brink, a man with 'acquired savant syndrome,' is called to visit a murderer who happens to be a woman. She hasn't spoken about what happened but seems to know who Mike is. Thus begins Mike's quest to solve a ton of puzzles that will help save this woman. Oh! Right. Mike is a Puzzle Master...he creates puzzles for a newspaper.

The first 20% of the book is exciting: setting the background for the story. Soon after that, it becomes a convoluted mess. While beautifully written, the plot branches out into infinity, confusing the reader in the worst possible way.

Most of the events taking place around our hero don't make sense and turn into holes in the story. I wanted to like this novel. As I've said, it is well written...but goes too far out into tangents that are never fully explained.

Thank you for the advanced copy!

Do you enjoy reading and thinking about the following: mysticism, Kabbalah, numerical brain teasers, demons, conspiracy theories, digital surveillance, Golems, secret societies, computer, hacking, Blockchain, and immortality?

If yes, then this is the book for you. I am only mildly interested in a couple of these topics, so I didn’t really enjoy this book. It is well written, and I think someone who is fascinated by these topics would really love this book. I don’t think I am intended audience. I’m giving it 2 1/2 stars and I always round up.

Much of the book goes into very long explanations of mystical theories that did not hold my interest so I wound up skimming this book and finished it in a day.

I appreciate net galley and the publisher, giving me a free digital ARC in exchange for my truthful opinion.

This was one of most uniquely fascinating books that I have had the pleasure of reading in quite some time. The synergy achieved between the puzzles contained within the book along with the central plot made this book so utterly intriguing, that I literally could not read it fast enough. The male protagonist Mike Brink, has what is called acquired savant syndrome, which leads him to see the world as puzzles and patterns. This aspect of the story was what drew me in because my foundation as a medical provider is in neurology, so I find the brain to be quite an enigma. Then you have the religious ideologies and hypotheses keenly interwoven into the central plot of the book and that my friend becomes this masterpiece of a novel.

I cannot state it often enough how utterly fascinating and unique this novel is, and I will be recommending it to any and all because how keenly written this book is, is genius that needs to be shared and appreciated by one and all! Kudos to Ms. Trussoni!!

a well written thriller that i couldn't put down

thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the copy for review

This book was interesting but it gave me a lot of whiplash. It was a quick read that reminded me of Dan Brown. I thought the puzzle would be more of a mystery than a cipher. I think this would be good for a movie adaptation.

Mike Brink is a puzzle master. A head injury in his past life has allowed him to see patterns and remember them like no one else. Jess Price is an author who stumbled across a mystery which turned into a murder and dove into the supernatural. Mix these threads together and you have a thriller that blends the past and present, reality and mysterious.

Overall a good read. The way the supernatural blended with the puzzle with religious roots was well done and interesting. The questions and ideas it brought up were stimulating. I did however struggle with the end of the novel. It felt rushed — with story threads abruptly tied off or dismissed in an unsatisfactory manner. 3 stars.

Review based on a digital Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley. Thank you!

Enjoyable book that I thought I knew where it was going but boy was I wrong! I loved the surprises in this novel but felt like some of it went over my head. The puzzles were the best part - wish there were a bit more though!

This one started strong, lagged a bit in the middle and ending sort of preposterously. I liked it but it won’t be for everyone and I’m not sure I’d continue if there was another book in the series. 3.5 stars

This was a capturing read! It reminded me of The Da Vinci Code with the God puzzle. But it was so thrilling and fun. It has everything from murder to porcelain dolls. Advanced technology to billionaires who think they can get away with everything and get everything they want. I felt like the author left it in a way that there could be a second book, and I would be ok with that.

While the book itself was pretty far-fetched, it did make me more inquisitive of acquired savant syndrome. Not a bad read, just so unlikely that it was hard to get into.

I really wanted to like the Puzzle Master more. It started out pretty strong, reading a lot like the Da Vinci Code. But then it went off the rails. I did keep reading it, it was very entertaining. It's not a supernatural book, yet there are some elements of characters sending messages in their dreams. There is a romance that doesn't make sense at all. Parts of the book seemed pretty anti-semitic to me. And I don't think the author did much research on how the New York State prison system works - there were some massive issues and really made it seem pretty easy for someone with no training at all to sneak in, around and out of a prison.

This wasn't a bad book, it held my attention long enough to finish it. Jess Price is an inmate at a women's prison, she hasn't spoken since she was convicted and jailed 5 years ago. But, she gives her psychiatrist a puzzle she had drawn, which included the name of Mike Brink, a man who had suffered a traumatic brain injury in his youth that left him with the ability to see patterns in everything he looks at, which made him a master a building puzzles (mostly various crossword type). The psychiatrist invites Mike to visit Jess in the hopes that Jess will speak, Mike isn't convinced she will but does visit out of curiosity. Jess convinces him that she's in danger and he's the only one that can save her. This sets Mike, and his dog, off on a varied route to find what the puzzle means and how to solve it. The story includes part of a letter from a man who had created a golem (an inanimate object that can be brought to life and could be good or bad) way back in the 1700's, he did it to replace another one that was wearing out. It was created in the image of the man's daughter who had died earlier. Back in the present Mike meets with a couple that also want to solve the puzzle and will stop at nothing to get the solution. There were points in the story that I really enjoyed the writing, mostly when Mike was involved, the story covers many genres, horror, supernatural, science fiction, thriller, romance. I would recommend. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Random House for the ARC.

Everything is a puzzle to Mike Brink, a brilliant puzzle constructor. Before a brain injury in high school, he was a typical guy, a football player. But afterward, he found out that the injury caused a rare medical condition: acquired savant syndrome. The huge changes in how he saw the world led him to leave football behind. He got advanced degrees on scholarships. But being so different from almost everyone else also left him feeling isolated.

When a psychiatrist at a women’s prison reaches out to him about a puzzle an unusual inmate drew, his curiosity is piqued. When he meets Jess Price, incarcerated for a horrific murder, he’s not just fascinated by the complex and drawing; Mike feels a connection to her.

Jess hasn’t spoken a word since her arrest, not even to defend herself, and Mike wants to figure out the meaning behind her strange puzzle as well as find the true culprit of the murder.

One mysterious puzzle leads Mike into a dangerous situation, going up against very powerful people and forces. But he can’t turn away.

The Puzzle Master blends ancient Jewish mysticism, scholarly research, complex puzzles, horror, and cutting-edge technology into one page-turning story. By the conclusion, the parts were all put together to reveal some curious answers. I personally wasn’t quite on board with a few pieces of the whole at the very end; some of the answers just didn’t work for me. But that may not be the case with many readers; overall, it’s a tantalizing and smart read.

I loved the premise of this, but it just didn't hook me as much as wanted. The concept is very intriguing, but I didn't love the characters or where the story went. I would be interested in picking up future works by this author though, as I found her writing style enjoyable.

This mystery/suspense follows Mike Brink - a celebrated puzzle constructor with acquired savant syndrome that allows him to solve any puzzle. So when he gets invited to a prison to solve a puzzle one of the inmates has drawn, he isn't expecting this day to be much different than any other. But when he isn't able to solve the puzzle, he ends up getting drawn into the prisoner's case and the hunt for the truth.

Overall, I liked this book just fine, but I think it was a case of mis-matched expectations. The one big selling point for me was a blurb I saw that compared this to The DaVinci Code + The Silent Patient. Unfortunately, that blurb along with the premise of Brink being a puzzle master gave me a very specific set of expectations that I didn't feel the book lived up to. I was expecting a book titled The Puzzle Master, with a main character who literally can solve any puzzle he comes across, being compared to The DaVinci Code to be really involved with the puzzling aspects. And sure, the puzzles were important to the overall plot, but used much more infrequently that I was expecting.
The mystery plot was overall satisfying and I think it all came together really well. There were a lot of moving parts, but Trussoni was able to balance them all well. We get some flashbacks from a journal entry and those did slow down the pacing some for me but we get a lot of background information that really fleshed out the details and stakes of the overall mystery. I did find the goalposts of the mystery kept moving because the characters would solve the first mystery, which would lead to the next, etc. Since all the parts were interconnected, it did still feel cohesive. However, I really love the big build up and investigation for mystery reads and these collection of smaller mysteries didn't quite give me the big satisfaction of having all the pieces fall together at the very end.

The characters felt like they were a little too one dimensional for my tastes. This was more of a plot-forward story instead of being really concerned about the character development. I do feel like there was some attempt at character development but it came across to me as very surface level and I didn't actually see the changes in our main character. The ending did leave the door open for a book 2 so there's potential for more development if this continues into a series. I usually prefer my reads to be more character-centered and since the mystery plot and lack of puzzles fell short for me, there wasn't enough plot for me.

Overall, this was a pretty satisfying mystery read, but it wasn't quite what I had expected. I liked a lot of the elements on their own, but the overall execution veered away from my personal tastes in mysteries. I was expecting a more complex, puzzle-forward mystery but this didn't quite rise to the level I was hoping for. I have heard really good things recently about this, so I think readers overall are enjoying it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC. Publication date was June 13, 2023

This reads like a cross between Dan Brown and Alex Michaelides. The perfect summer thriller and the best thriller since Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. Very unique from Angelology but equally as compelling.