The Manhattan Puzzle

June 30, 2014
O'Bryan's pedestrian third thriller featuring Isabel and Sean Ryan (after 2012's The Jerusalem Puzzle) is overly dependent on knowledge of previous series entries and derivative of Dan Brown's novels. After Sean goes missing, Isabel leaves their comfortable London home and young son, Alek, entrusting him to a friend's care, to search through the wilds of Manhattan for her husband. Sean's disappearance seems linked to his consulting work for the mammoth banking firm BXH, the target of a threatened Chinese takeover. Isabel's quest, fueled by caffeine and unrelenting grit, gradually intersects with secret MI5 machinations. Meanwhile, the sinister Lord Bidener and his lethal dominatrix assistant, Xena, enact ritualistic tortures in pursuit of a centuries-old secret of ultimate power. A flimsy plot sends the Styrofoam characters floundering through one narrow escape after another, ramping up to a subterranean finale with cannibalistic rats. Isabel eventually declares that all she wants is a "normal boring life again"âand so will most of O'Bryan's exhausted readers.