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The Puzzle Master

A Novel

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The Puzzle Master

By: Danielle Trussoni
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
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About this listen

Reality and the supernatural collide when an expert puzzle maker is thrust into an ancient mystery—one with explosive consequences for the fate of humanity—in this suspenseful thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Angelology

“This novel has it all and more. In the nimble, talented hands of Trussoni the pages fly.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci


A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, PopSugar, Bookreporter, CrimeReads

All the world is a puzzle, and Mike Brink—a celebrated and ingenious puzzle constructor—understands its patterns like no one else. Once a promising Midwestern football star, Brink was transformed by a traumatic brain injury that caused a rare medical condition: acquired savant syndrome. The injury left him with a mental superpower—he can solve puzzles in ways ordinary people can’t. But it also left him deeply isolated, unable to fully connect with other people.

Everything changes after Brink meets Jess Price, a woman serving thirty years in prison for murder who hasn’t spoken a word since her arrest five years before. When Price draws a perplexing puzzle, her psychiatrist believes it will explain her crime and calls Brink to solve it. What begins as a desire to crack an alluring cipher quickly morphs into an obsession with Price herself. She soon reveals that there is something more urgent, and more dangerous, behind her silence, thrusting Brink into a hunt for the truth.

The quest takes Brink through a series of interlocking enigmas, but the heart of the mystery is the God Puzzle, a cryptic ancient prayer circle created by the thirteenth-century Jewish mystic Abraham Abulafia. As Brink navigates a maze of clues, and his emotional entanglement with Price becomes more intense, he realizes that there are powerful forces at work that he cannot escape.

Ranging from an upstate New York women’s prison to nineteenth-century Prague to the secret rooms of the Pierpont Morgan Library, The Puzzle Master is a tantalizing, addictive thriller in which humankind, technology, and the future of the universe itself are at stake.

©2023 Danielle Trussoni (P)2023 Random House Audio
Historical Fiction Supernatural Suspense Paranormal Fiction Exciting Fantasy Mystery
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Critic reviews

“The many irresistible elements in Danielle Trussoni’s The Puzzle Master include Mike Brink, a preternaturally brilliant man billed as ‘the most talented puzzleist in the world.’”—The New York Times

“This immersive, brilliant book is a labyrinth of ciphers, cryptograms, logic puzzles, word puzzles, and a doozy of a conspiracy. Wouldn’t you like to experience a book so singular?”The Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[Trussoni] is at the top of her game in involving the reader in the puzzle-solving process, making the most of historic settings, including the Pierpont Morgan Library, and making the book’s Da Vinci Code–like trappings pay off. The Kabbalah meets the New York Times crossword in a brainy thriller.”Kirkus Reviews

What listeners say about The Puzzle Master

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I genuinely hated it

Okay.

The story was okay. The concept was mid. I didn't hate it, and I didn't love it.

Man gets sucked into helping woman who is in prison for murdering her boyfriend. First time meeting, she kisses him. Weird. Then he starts fantasizing about her tying him up. Also weird. Then he goes on a rescue mission to break her out of prison and she kisses him again in the prison because like why tf not. Also weird. And then there's yet another scene about him fantasizing about being handcuffed by her. Like homegirl literally got done for murdering her boyfriend and we're actually dreaming about being tied up by her. So much ick just for the love story alone.

Aside from that, the concept about figuring out the puzzle pieces was kind of thrown together and not well thought out. The flow was choppy. The characters weren't great. The one guy is apparently super smart because of a football accident but misses basic stuff that's right in front of him. His feelings are all over the place. The "bad guy" wasn't well formed, nor bad or scary.

They tried so hard to leave it on a cliff-hanger but I'd rather hang myself with how predictable it was.

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