How you feel about puzzles will likely colour your reaction to this new thriller from Danielle Trussoni. It’s a follow-on to her well-received book from last year, The Puzzle Master. I love puzzles, and at first I believed I’d found the perfect read.
Mike Brink is a New York City puzzle creator who suffered a brain injury that left him with acquired savant syndrome, which is extremely rare. Most savants are born with the condition, and Trussoni says in a note that fewer than 50 cases of the acquired type have been documented, worldwide. Savants (congenital or acquired) have extraordinary cognitive abilities in a single field such as music, art or mathematics. Mike Brink’s field is solving puzzles, along with the supporting mathematical skills. Life isn’t easy for him; interpersonal relationships are difficult. His psychotherapist is developing a new treatment to tamp down his abilities and, interestingly, Mike would prefer to be less ‘special.’
In the book’s first scene, a Shinto priest of the Ise Grand Shrine in Japan is given an unusual and important commission: to fetch the Emperor’s Dragon Puzzle Box, which he has faithfully guarded for a dozen years, wrap it in a square of white silk, and take it to Tokyo. He’s haunted by rumours about the box that ‘one look will blind you, one touch will burn your fingers to the bone,’ but the temptation to try to open it and reveal the secrets inside is too great. Before sundown, he is dead.
The story then moves to New York and the puzzling world of Mike Brink. A US-raised young Japanese woman, Sakura Nakamoto, intrigues Mike with a succession of clever puzzles. The Imperial family has asked her to recruit him to be the next person to try to open the Dragon Puzzle Box, a feat attempted in secret only every 12 years. Some renowned puzzle experts have tried and failed, apparently, because they have never been heard from again.
Exhilarated by this high-stakes invitation, Mike keeps an appointment with his therapist, Dr Trevers, wanting his counsel on whether to accept this challenge, and learns that Travers has died, victim of an apparent heart attack. On his phone, Mike finds a message from Travers – an image of the Imperial Chrysanthemum, which, in origami form, was one of Nakamoto’s puzzles. Mike interprets this as a ‘yes’ to Nakamoto’s invitation, then realises the message was sent and Travers was dead before he even met her.
The story then moves to Japan, where a woman named Ume is training a small cadre of young women to be warriors as ruthless as herself – female samurai. Ume belongs to a secret society that believes the Dragon Puzzle Box contains a powerful treasure that will restore the samurai to power. Meanwhile, another powerful antagonist also wants the Box’s contents. He needs them in order to pursue one of those ‘fate of the world hangs in the balance’ missions that may strain credulity. Even if Mike Brink can open the Box without dying in the process, the dangers to him and Nakamoto will be only just beginning.
I like the elements of Japanese culture that Trussoni includes in this tale. She lived several years in Japan and the story environment certainly carries the feel of authenticity. A ‘foreign’ setting is almost always extra exciting, simply because the rules are different there, and they are very different indeed in the Imperial court.
As the moon rises, Mike is taken to an outdoor pavilion on the grounds of Fukiage Palace to make his attempt. You (and he) know the Box is deadly, and you also know that various forces are stealthily converging on the courtyard to secure the Box’s contents, should he succeed. It’s a scene with considerable tension that goes on perhaps a bit too long.
From this point forward, the story is more of a conventional cat and mouse game played in Japan, with some nice puzzle elements added. However, the breakneck race across Japan by train and helicopter didn’t carry the realism, for me at least, of the earlier story. For one thing, the timing seemed off. At the story’s conclusion, the situation isn’t completely resolved, the principal antagonist has not been put to rest, and there is the feeling that another book hovers on the horizon.
Also see Michael Pronko’s Hiroshi Shimizu series.
Random House
Print, Kindle
£7.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
