Dreams, rituals, codes, riddles, porcelain dolls, prayer circles, a dual gendered god, the God puzzle, and before you know it the future of the universe and mankind is at stake.

I haven’t finished - an extraordinary superpower, a maze of clues, secret rooms, cryptic ancient …more mysteries- no wonder I was ‘puzzled’ - this was just too much, too convoluted and unnecessary over the top ‘puzzle art’ that didn’t come together and remained entangled in its own labyrinth of subplots, twists and messaging.

I thought the book started well and an early quote got my attention - “Sometimes a secret remains out of reach for a reason”.

Keeping the suspense going, we have a brutal murder, a woman convicted of the crime but won’t speak out, and the puzzle master who now possesses an extraordinary skill, after a traumatic brain injury, known as ‘acquired savant syndrome’. There are few known cases around the world but it enables the person to solve puzzles and see patterns that no one else can.

Having been sought out by Jess Price, Mike Brink must solve the ‘puzzle’ to free this woman he is becoming obsessed with and protect her until he does. However, with dead bodies turning up with no obvious connections to the case, Mike doesn’t know who to trust among the many enemies he seems to be accumulating.

Then the book went off into the twilight zone with so many weird aspects to the story, events and people that did not come together or align unfortunately. We went down so many rabbit holes explaining ancient myths and texts, Hebrew writing, and the so called ‘God puzzle’. I lost the plot, and it was game over for me!!! (less)