When Mike Brink was on the football team in high school, he had a plan. He was good looking and was working hard to be a great quarterback, hoping for a full college scholarship. But fate is a strange thing. An injury leaves him with a brain injury & agift, but it first makes him believe he’s losing his mind. He finds the right doctors and learns how to live with his condition.
Years later, Dr. Moses, a psychologist at a prison in upstate New York, contacts him about a patient, Jess Price. She hasn’t spoken a word since the police arrived and charged her with murder. Now she spends her days silent and locked up, but wants Mike Brink to visit. She gives him a puzzle, something that he is incapable of walking away from. He survived one traumatic injury, the question is, can he survive what Jess exposes him too.
Well, this was a definite puzzle, and I’ll be honest, I had to read many many parts really slow. Still, I didn’t understand all the science, but I got way more than I would have with my usual page flipping style. Did it go where I expected? Probably not, but that is because I just couldn’t figure this puzzle out. It’s a mix of genres and except for some of the science and religion that flew right over my head, I really enjoyed it. Somehow I think this might be a love it or hate it book.

This was an utterly fresh and inventive take on a thriller while managing to have the feel of a classic in the genre. The puzzle of this book grabbed me from the beginning and pulled me straight to its center.

This book has a little bit of something for every reader - puzzles, intrigue, history, art, conspiracy, technology, suspense, and the supernatural. There was a lot packed in this book, but it never felt like too much. It was expertly crafted to encompass all of these elements while not feeling overwhelming to the reader.

This book was also packed full of action, but it didn’t feel like your typical action sequences (that I can find pretty boring). There wasn’t any lull in the pacing and things were continuously moving forward.

I didn’t expect a religious aspect to the puzzle, but as a non-religious person this wasn’t off-putting. There was no preaching, but rather a focus on religious history that I found interesting. I enjoyed all of the history we got between the religious things and the art and ceramic history. You could tell there was a lot of research put into this.

My favorite parts were the letters from a historical artist connected to the events of the current timeline. I thought these were one of the strongest parts of the book.

My only complaint is that the characterization wasn’t all the way there. Our main character and the supporting characters feel fairly surface level. Between all the movement, puzzle solving and history, there wasn’t a lot of time to get to know the characters. But this is a plot focused book so it wasn’t as apparent as it would have been in a slower moving story.


I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Mike Brink is the puzzle master. As a high school quarterback, he suffered a traumatic brain injury during a game that changed the way his brain sees the world and its patterns. Now as an adult, he is famous for his ingenious puzzles seen in various publications. He is called upon to visit a young woman in a psychiatric unit of the NY State prison; she has been sentenced for the murder of her boyfriend under strange circumstances and has asked to see Mike. She passes him a strange puzzle to solve, one that leads him down a supernatural path into the mysteries of the universe, to the very core of creation.

This is an ingenious, fascinating story. Mike Brink is truly a unique character whose mind works on mysterious ways. Will we see more of him and the dark mastermind (genius?) behind the secret plot for the future of humankind?

I received an arc of this new thriller from the author and publisher via NetGalley. Many thanks! My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

Having read Trussoni in the past, I was well aware that I would be in the hands of an expert author. Trussoni has a way with words and blending history with mystery, in a way that’s very gripping. The Puzzle Master is a thrilling novel that races against time. There’s much to love about this book, it’s action-packed and atmospheric, and the doll lover in me was thrilled that it also included creepy dolls.

After a traumatic brain injury, Mike acquired a rare condition known as savant syndrome. He uses this new skill to solve and create complex puzzles. Everything changes once he meets Jess Price, a woman convicted of murder who hasn’t spoken for five years. When Jess begins drawing strange puzzles with religious undertones, that’s when Mike gets involved and the enthralling journey begins.

For someone who loves multiple POV’s, this novel delivers in so many ways. It includes alternating timelines, letters, journal entries, and transcriptions. Trussoni expertly weaves so many genres into this novel, mystery, thriller, horror, and science fiction – so if you’re a fan of any of those genres, you will enjoy this novel. The Puzzle Master is a pulsating, addictive read that I highly suggest taking along with you when you go on holiday this year, you won’t regret it!

*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

The Puzzle Master tells the story of Mike Brink, a puzzle maker with acquired savant syndrome, and Jess Price, a writer turned convicted murderer, as their paths cross and they uncover the answer to the God puzzle. This story is too detailed for more of a synopsis than that.

This book is like The Da Vinci Code had a love child with a sudoku book and a splash of historical Judaism.. The Jewish mysticism elements were phenomenal and made me really curious into the history of what was included in a book. I really loved Mike's character and watching him grow as the book went on. I also really enjoyed getting to see Jess open up and trust Mike as timewent on. The characters in this story were so well done. The ending leaves an opening for a potential second book in my opinion and I am hoping there is one! No one writes like Danielle Trussoni and it really is something special.

Talk about twists and turns, The Puzzle Master has them all!

I really liked Brink and was fascinated by his history that gave him his present-day talents. I loved watching him solve the puzzles put before him. Some took a bit more than others but those little journeys were part of what kept me engaged. I did get bogged down a bit when the mathematics and ancient religion were dealt with on a larger scale.

This book covers just about every genre there is which lead me into a suspenseful thriller filled with moments of horror, paranormal activity and a mystery that was centuries in the making. Oh, and a tiny dab of romance. There were some time jumps along the way, but they were not hard to follow.

The Puzzle Master was a story about a regular guy who suffered from squired savant syndrome who started to be able to solve and create puzzles and ended up somehow involved in a crazy adventure based on his abilities.
As the synopsis says, it is perfect for fans of The Davinci Code and involved a little bit of horror and adventure and the supernatural all mixed together.
I really enjoyed the beginning as Mike ended up engrossed in the mystery of Jess Price. I was intrigued by what happened to her, what happened to the last counselor attempting to help her, and was also interested in figuring out what this weird shadow group was and how they were involved.
Then, things quickly felt like maybe I was reading a book about a haunted doll, like Annabelle or something.
And the book took some more twists and turns after that to involve even more aspects of the puzzle mystery.
I think fans of adventure thrillers will really like this one and I thought it was fun and quick, but overall not as gripping as it felt in the beginning. Mike started to get on my nerves and kept being clueless instead of knowledgeable as someone in the group went into a large explanation of what was happening. I expected him to be more involved as an expert and not just along for the ride.
Still, I think this will popular this summer and would therefore recommend it to fans wanting something adventurous and cryptic.

“She was like white light passing through a prism, her essence exploding into a variety of colors, each one interchangeable. One minute she was a riddle, the next an answer; one minute he wanted to save her, and the next she was the only one who could save him.”

Deflecting the mystery/thriller genre label, this new novel is truly difficult to describe. For those readers willing to suspend disbelief and try something new and different, you’re in for a treat! With the intrigue of The DaVinci Code, the world building of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and the Gothic menacing feel of Sarah Water’s The Little Stranger, this story was one I could not put down.

Mike Brink’s aspirations as a football player end with an accident which leaves him with a rare condition known as acquired savant syndrome. His extraordinary skill set is put to the test to solve a mystery involving a young woman wrongly accused of a gruesome murder, with implications running far and deep. A mad man’s search for immortality leads to more questions than answers, but notes unearthed from a French doll maker from the past, set the puzzle-solving wheels in motion.

From the religious mysticism of the past to Quantum computing of the future, themes of good vs evil and life vs death are steeped in spiritualism and mysticism. The final 100 pages of The Puzzle Master provide a pulse pounding, screen worthy race to the finish ending; a fitting reward for readers who have come along for the ride!

Many thanks to Net Galley and Random House for the early copy in exchange for my honest review.

The compulsion to solve puzzles that cross his path draws an expert puzzle maker into a mystery of historic proportions in Danielle Trussoni’s The Puzzle Master.
Enduring a brain injury in his late teen years that altered how he sees the world, Mike Brink is able to see and solve patterns in a manner that others aren’t capable of. Parlaying his ability into creating puzzles Brink has had a successful career as an expert puzzle maker (and solver), which is a reason his name is written on a perplexing puzzle by a woman, Jess Price, who is incarcerated for a strange murder she’s thought to have committed at Sedge House. Called to the prison to solve the puzzle, Brink arrives and quickly finds himself deeply drawn to Price, in addition to the need to understand the puzzle. Unable to let this enigma go, Brink soon becomes involved in something much more complicated and far reaching than he could have anticipated, garnering the attention of powerful people, as the culmination of the work of a Jewish mystic, a Parisian porcelain dollmaker, and Jameson Sedge, who determinedly pursues a path toward immortality, results in an outcome with shocking implications.
Told through the perspectives of two men, the letter of another, and the journal of one woman, a tale laden with hints of conspiracy and a heavy layer of secretiveness is revealed that has sweeping implications for the world’s future. Ambitiously including aspects of the religious, artistic, scientific, and mysterious, the story moves at a relatively quick pace but was slowed at times by lengthy, though interesting, descriptions of characters’ pasts as it tried to incorporate a bit too much, diluting detailed focus of the concepts raised. Though the characters are reasonably fleshed out, when referring to them in the text it’s done interchangeably using their first or last name and this inconsistency comes across as an odd choice (or sloppy editing). The world presented in the novel incorporates the pandemic, mentioning it periodically throughout, anchoring the story in contemporary reality a way that didn’t feel necessary, especially when considering the more supernatural elements presented in the latter portion that create a more surreal drive to the adventure.
Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The plot of this book is both fast paced and intricately crafted, with detailed and descriptive scenes of puzzles and those solving and crafting them. It's got a touch of mysticism and roots in religion, and I think this is one that is going to be a hit with all of those who were swept up in The Da Vinci Code and have been seeking something that similarly combines a high stakes quest with religion and cryptography/puzzles.

I've read a lot of books, but I've never encountered any quite like this! It has all the action of a good Indiana Jones movie with an original story that completely captivated me from the very first page.

I was spellbound by the author's incredible gift of storytelling that kept me intrigued from the very first page to the last.

Strap in for a wild ride. You will need to pay attention to all the details to stay in the game. Mike Brink creates puzzles and is good at solving them. What happens to Jess is a puzzle that is difficult to solve. The plot is a marvel and comes complete with pictures of puzzles. Take a ride as the characters try to solve an ancient puzzle on the mystery of life. Knowing who to trust will be difficult and there are surprises right up to the very end.

I like the idea of a thriller that explores puzzles. The main character is great at creating and solving puzzles, and is tasked with helping an inmate that has a very intriguing puzzle. It turns out that the puzzle is way more complex that anything that he ever encountered, and strange things start to happen to avoid them getting together to discuss the puzzle. While it may be forced a some points - a famous puzzle master being called to a prison and actually driving 5 hours just to see a puzzle?? - the story is actually interesting and has a nice suspense that keeps going until the end.

Mike Brink went from a football star to a puzzle constructor via a traumatic brain injury, but he feels isolated from other people. Jess Price is serving thirty years in prison for murder and hasn’t spoken since her arrest five years before. She draws a puzzle her psychiatrist thinks will explain her crime, so Brink is asked to solve it. This develops into an obsession with Price and the meaning of her silence. At the heart of it all is the God Puzzle, a cryptic ancient prayer circle created by the thirteenth-century Jewish mystic Abraham Abulafia. There may be more powerful forces at work than Brink realizes.

The reader is drawn into the mystery of it all just as Mike is. Jess drew him in with an incomplete cipher and a message that her former therapist was killed for what he knew. Then we see her diary from before the killing, and its layers of mysterious events and the creeping sense of something sinister; it doesn't help that there really is a group keeping watch over Jess in the prison besides the guards. Because she reached out for help, Mike's caught up in the mess. He is chased from the prison to locations nearby, and it comes down to the Puzzle Jess had seen at the house years ago.

The information in the book is fascinating. Mike sees symbols, numbers, and ciphers in a different way, which allows him to build the puzzles in the New York Times or in books. We get glimpses of the ciphers and mathematics from his point of view. We also learn about porcelain, golems, and dollmaking in the 1600s as well as Jewish mysticism. It's a religious conundrum at the heart of the prayer circle, a means of understanding the True Name and meaning of God, which can unlock the power of life and death. Add in the financial backing of secret groups, and it's a conspiracy sitting out in the open just waiting for a puzzle master with synaesthesia to help solve it. I love the layers within the story, how we find the physical mystery as well as the metaphysical, and it all comes together at the end. A fantastic and thinky book to curl up with in the evening.

This started out so good. Pulled me in right away - the mystery of a puzzle! It reminded me so much of Dan Brown's books. And then the conspiracies happened. I don't know why, but the doll/golem theme just didn't do it for me. Especially with certain ideas that felt icky - jew rabbis bringing an evil soul into this world, I don't know, maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

And then it felt a bit confusing. Different timelines, different conspiracies. In the end it fell flat for me.

The beginning of this book really sucked me in, we meet Mike and Connie as they are driving to meet an inmate at a women's correctional facility who has drawn a strange puzzle, and solving puzzles is what Mike does.

Jess will only talk to Mike, and when he leaves the meeting he is definitely intrigued enough to stick around and see where this puzzle will lead. We get to see a flashback of the events at Sedge house that got Jess put in prison, and I would definitely have read this as its own story. It had this creepy could be a haunted house feel, and with the weird things Jess experienced, and the dolls, omg the dolls! is there even more to say?

As Mike tries to unravel the mess he found himself in, and the weird connection he feels with Jess the plot does move forward slowly but all the reveals we get had me wanting to keep going to see what was going to happen next. Most of the big moments happen toward the end and with all the build-up we got some things did feel a little anticlimactic, and I thought the romance between Jess and Mike didn't make sense. But all the puzzle-solving and the mystery behind what happened at Sedge house really kept me invested and I did love how all of that played out.

I would definitely read more by this author in the future

The Puzzle Master by Danielle Trussoni

Much has already been said about the premise and structure of this book, so I won't rehash it. I was especially intrigued by the puzzle aspect of the storyline, and I found it a bit light. It seemed to be more discussion about how puzzling affected the character, and I was hoping for more actual puzzles and the solving process. The book also could have benefitted by editing one or two characters or storylines and improving the pacing.

Despite that, I enjoyed the story and characters and would recommend it to someone looking for a slow burn thriller that crosses genres.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for a free copy of #ThePuzzleMaster by Danielle Trussoni. All opinions are my own.

The Puzzle Master is a very interesting mystery that’s a mix of The Silent Patient, a bit of Pinocchio, and a religious mystery all into one. The story follows Mike Brink, a man who has acquired savant syndrome and is brilliant with puzzles. He is called to a prison to try and help a young woman in jail for killing her boyfriend who drew a unique puzzle. From there, we go down a rabbit hole about this puzzle and what happened to the boyfriend. We go all the way back to early 1900 Prague and we learn about this puzzle and this doll and Jewish folklore.

I enjoyed this story a lot. It had a lot of complex ideas and religious history that I was not expecting. The writing was very good and it kept my attention for a topic that I’m not very familiar with. It also threw in some doll horror and a lot of action as well. It reminded me of the Silent Patient a bit with the relationship of the patient and outsider. There were a lot of interesting twists and a lot of action as well. It was a fast paced book that kept me guessing. This story was very ambitious and covered many topics.

I did get a bit lost in the middle and it did seem very long. I would have preferred maybe a little less ambition with the story and everything it covered. The ending was very open which i don’t tend to enjoy.

This was a very unique mystery that wove together a lot of different things. I recommend to other mystery readers who enjoy unique mysteries.

Thanks so much to netgalley and Random House for the arc!

The Puzzle Master by Danielle Trussoni #thirtyeighthbookof2023 #arc

CW: death, murder, creepy dolls, dognapping, golems

After an accident, Mike developed sudden acquired savant syndrome, and now he is a genius puzzle solver and constructor. So when he’s summoned by a prison doctor to solve a puzzle drawn by a convicted murderer, he is intrigued. Almost immediately he is drawn into a dangerous situation where the supernatural comes into play.

I enjoyed this book, but I had a hard time suspending my disbelief at certain aspects of the story. The puzzling was also over my head, but that didn’t take away from them. The mystery behind a missing doll was actually pretty interesting, and I was caught up in the pace of the novel. The plot moved fast and was a quick easy read. The ending was a little weird and I can’t tell if it’s leading to a sequel. I didn’t love the romance subplot. I thought it unnecessary and unrealistic and it didn’t add anything to the story. Overall though, this was a pleasant read.

Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinrandomhouse for the advance copy. (Pub date 6/13/23)

There wasn’t much I disliked about this Da Vinci Code-esque read. What I did find perplexing was the ending. I thought there would be some unexpected twist. There wasn’t. To me that would have made this story even better.

If you enjoy action packed stories with a ancient supernatural mystery twist and an adorable canine friend of the protaganist as well as complicated puzzles then this is for you!

“…his concept of God was identical to the concept of scientific reality I had described. God was, he said, light. Not metaphorically. Not abstractly. But literally all of the attributes we associate with photons of light—a ubiquitous presence that moves freely through space and time, an energy with the creative capacities to generate life on a molecular level—these are the qualities of the creative power we know as God.”