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
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