The House of Secrets

April 25, 2016
Bestseller Meltzer (The Fifth Assassin) and Goldberg (Gangsterland) launch a series with a conspiracy-laden spy novel that’s at its best when it’s gleefully cutting the legs out from the genre’s tropes. After a car accident in Los Angeles, Hazel-Ann Nash wakes up to find that much of her memory—particularly around anything she had an emotional connection to—is lost, her father is dead, and an FBI agent is asking questions. Her father, Jack, was the host of a cult TV show investigating the unexplained, and he was personally obsessed with Benedict Arnold’s Bible. Meanwhile, a mysterious man known only as the Bear travels to Dubai to kill a man named Kennedy, and the body of another man named Nixon is found in Canada. The authors toss plenty of conspiracy novel zaniness into the mix, but they also temper things nicely, even as the tensions escalate. The result is slight, but it’s also highly satisfying. Agents: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, WME (Meltzer); Jennie Dunham at Dunham Literary (Goldberg).

Author Brad Meltzer has written a mystery about the murder of a host of a TV show on conspiracies. Clearly, he didn't need to go far for inspiration--as anyone who has ever caught "Brad Meltzer: Decoded" can attest. A dual narration by Scott Brick and January LaVoy makes a great book even better in audio. LaVoy deserves special credit for her calm portrayal of a young woman who is left without memory or emotion after her father, the TV star, is murdered. It all has to do with a book that may have belonged to Benedict Arnold. Meltzer, always one to provoke readers with tantalizing theories, asks a simple question: What if Arnold was really a double agent for George Washington? And what would certain people do to keep such knowledge secret? Murder would be the least of it. M.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine