The Puzzle Master Audiobook By Danielle Trussoni cover art

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 Thriller & Suspense Paranormal Crime Fiction Exciting Fantasy Mystery

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

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It was too long and too ridiculous. The “genius” was surprising obtuse and it had all my least favorite traits: demons, boorish characters and hints of religious claptrap.

Nope

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This was a great listen so many twist and turns. I could not guess what was going to happen I really enjoyed it all.

Suspense

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While it had elements of a good story, it was a bit far fetched and unrealistic at times. The plot was predictable.

Predictable

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A smattering of this and that. Too many genres and pieces of information that are loosely tied together making the storyline a tad confusing.

Genre confused

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Another good story from a talented writer. I found the naming of each chapter, it interrupted the flow of the narrative

Kept My Interest

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The story wrapped various scientific scenarios with religious beliefs and made for a compelling story

Very unusual ending

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Trussoni has written two good books, a clumsy sequel, a cleverly conceived genealogical thriller that relies heavily on coincidence and found texts, and ... this. It's a potboiler, sure, intended as an intellectual thriller, and can't be held to high literary standards--but still, it is asking for standards and reaching for them, then just getting stuck in some rather silly situations and twists. The effort to make head injury survivor Mike into a hero of mythic proportions shows the strain all too obviously. Trussoni wants to be better at all this than she is. And she has proven she can be a fine writer; maybe she needs to abandon genre writing, or maybe she needs to give each manuscript more time than she's been doing.

disappointing potboiler

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Then it became so crazy and unbelievable. Just not a great book. Couldn’t wait to finish it to be done vs not wanting to put it down.

The story started out okay

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Negative: A great story was ruined by a an underlying social agenda not revealed until end of story. I won’t read this author again.

Positive: The reader’s performance was excellent.

Well written but has social agenda

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You lost me when the man with the photographic memory had to "write it down."

Almost good...

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