The Inner Circle

November 22, 2010
A fascinating look at the hidden treasures of the National Archives is the one strength of this otherwise unsatisfying thriller. Archivist Beecher White, to impress childhood crush Clementine Kaye during a tour of the archives, shows her the "Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility" reserved for President Orson Wallace, who often visits the SCIF. The accidental discovery of a rare volume linked to George Washington starts White on a perilous journey involving the Culper Ring, a secret spy group reaching back to the nation's first president; Nico Hadrian, a failed presidential assassin confined in a mental institution; and a presidential secret entrusted only to a few of Wallace's closest friends. Kaye's ambiguous re-entry into White's life adds another challenge. Bestseller Meltzer (The Book of Lies) fails to dial up much suspense with too many sketchy characters and a plot that never lives up to its promise, but the December 2 debut of his History Channel show, Brad Meltzer's Decoded, is sure to win him new fans.

December 1, 2010

A fast-moving tale of murder, deception and intrigue linked to George Washington's Culper Ring and its espionage descendants.

Beecher White works in the "nation's attic"—the U.S. National Archives. Dumped by his fiancé and thoroughly depressed, the young archivist's mood improves after he's contacted by Clementine Kaye, a young woman he's had a crush on since school days. Raised by a single mother, Clemmi wants to search the Archives records to help find her father. Beecher wants to impress Clemmi, and so, with the help of a friendly security guard, they make a surreptitious foray into a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility), a secured room where presidents examine top-secret material. There they stumble upon a hidden antique dictionary, one possibly owned by Washington. Soon the guard turns up dead. Is the dictionary a code book once used by the Culper Ring, a group of double agents, spies and messengers organized to assist Washington in the republic's chaotic early days? Does the Ring still operate? Hints pop up that President Orson Wallace uses the SCIF to communicate with today's Ring members. The mystery grows to encompass the president's doctor and barber, other archivists and Clemmie's father, who is revealed to be Nico Hadrian, institutionalized as the attempted assassin of a former president. Hadrian, paranoid and violent, seems to know things about the Ring, and about "the inner circle," the ring-within-the-ring that some less-than-ethical presidents have used to shape history. Meltzer's chapters are short and cinematic, and the conclusion—some bad guys dead and buried, some not—suggests he plans a series.

Conspiracies make for good reading, and this book could turn skeptics into believers.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 15, 2010
In this political thriller with historical-conspiracy overtones (or perhaps its the other way around), Meltzer creates his most engaging protagonist in years. Beecher White is an archivist with the National Archives, who stumbles upon an old book hidden away in a room used exclusively by the president. But did the president know that the book (a spelling dictionary that once belonged to George Washington) was there? Andalmost impossible for Beecher to imaginecould it be that the president or someone close to him is willing to kill to regain possession of the book? Meltzer teams Beecher with an equally strong character, Clementine Kaye, a woman from the archivists past whose estranged father is, perhaps not coincidentally, the man who tried to kill the current presidents predecessor. Meltzer expertly develops the story, throwing in twists and turns at appropriate intervals, and he does an excellent job of putting us in Beechers corner and making us care about what happens to him. The story has a surprising and satisfying conclusion, and Meltzer leaves the door wide open for a sequel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)