The House of Secrets by Brad Meltzer
It’s a difficult challenge for novelists in the Mystery-Thriller-Suspense genre to walk the line between keeping things vague enough to sustain the mystery … while not so vague that the reader is mystified by what’s going on.
I’m usually a big fan of Brad Meltzer … ever since his debut novel, The Tenth Justice in 1997, but his most recent novel, House of Secrets featuring a new protagonist, Hazel Nash, was a tough book to get through.
It’s rare when I put down a book I’ve started — advice contrary to what I recommend you do so you don’t waste your time with a novel you don’t enjoy — but in this case I soldiered on. It’s a very complicated plot, amplified because Hazel Nash’s brain was scrambled in a car crash. If you love Brad Meltzer, it may be worth a try, but for this novel, the line between mysterious and mystifying isn’t very clear.