BookBrowse Reviews The Puzzle Box by Danielle Trussoni

BookBrowse:

The latest Danielle Trussoni thriller, featuring a mind-bending race against time and across Japan.

During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ascends to the throne, restoring imperial rule in Japan. He commissions a puzzle box, rumored to hold an imperial family treasure. Emperor Meiji dies with the secret of what's inside, and the puzzle creator dies with the secret of how to open it. Over the years, the descendants of the imperial family have tried to solve the puzzle and recover their treasure. Every twelve years, during the lunar Year of the Dragon, a contest is held to open the box. Disturbingly, every puzzle master who attempts it dies trying. But there's never been a puzzle master like Mike Brink.

Brink, the savant code breaker from The Puzzle Master, returns in Danielle Trussoni's latest installment, The Puzzle Box. His newest challenge, the Dragon Box of the Japanese imperial family, is as legendary among puzzle enthusiasts as concrete evidence of it is elusive and secretive. When a real-life invitation to solve it arrives on Brink's doorstep one wintry New York morning, he feels compelled to try. His motivation is not the treasure itself, but the thrill of the puzzle, and a chance to learn about himself through the process. His latest adventure sends him, along with his trusted friend Rachel Appel, across Japan, from the imperial city of Tokyo to the onsen town of Hakone to the caves of Kyushu. The story is set in the modern era, but crucial bits of Japanese history are revealed over the course of the story.

The Puzzle Box, while set in a new location and with a new challenge, returns to familiar faces and themes. In addition to Brink and Appel, it features an old antagonist, as well as the juxtaposition of modern-day tech elite with elements of mysticism, as Appel believes that Brink's acquired savant abilities make him a "conduit of the gods." Trussoni also resumes her fast-paced storytelling. In 300 pages and over one night, we cover the length of Japan, solve a 74-move puzzle, and unravel the competing motivations of the imperial family, an old samurai clan, and a secretive, powerful faction determined to gain control of mythic keys.

In this sequel, Trussoni touches on themes of balance and contentment as Brink continues his struggle to understand who he is after the life-changing injury that left him with his remarkable puzzle-breaking skills. She also raises questions around human vs. artificial intelligence, a relevant subject for today as we grapple with the possibility that companies like OpenAI and tools like ChatGPT have opened to us.

Trussoni lived for a period in Japan. While the book does not come across as the most authentic (some of the character names are a bit cliched — take Sakura and Ume, for instance), the history appears reasonably well-researched. Her conceptualization of the various puzzles throughout the story are well-developed, and a fun bonus for those who enjoy puzzles and like to play along. No word yet on a third installment of the Mike Brink stories, but I'll certainly be waiting with excitement.

This review first ran in the October 16, 2024 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.