The Book of Lies [Hardcover]

Brad Meltzer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 2008

Brad Meltzer--author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Fate--returns with his most thrilling and emotionally powerful novel to date.


In Chapter Four of the Bible, Cain kills Abel. It is the world's most famous murder. But the Bible is silent about one key detail: the weapon Cain used to kill his brother. That weapon is still lost to history.

In 1932, Mitchell Siegel was killed by three gunshots to his chest. While mourning, his son dreamed of a bulletproof man and created the world's greatest hero: Superman. And like Cain's murder weapon, the gun used in this unsolved murder has never been found.

Until now.

Today in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Cal Harper comes face-to-face with his family's greatest secret: his long-lost father, who's been shot with a gun that traces back to Mitchell Siegel's 1932 murder. But before Cal can ask a single question, he and his father are attacked by a ruthless killer tattooed with the anicent markings of Cain. And so begins the chase for the world's first murder weapon.

What does Cain, history's greatest villain, have to do with Superman, the world's greatest hero? And what do two murders, committed thousands of years apart, have in common? This is the mystery at the heart of Brad Meltzer's riveting and utterly intriguing new thriller

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Meltzer (The Book of Fate) deserves credit for an audacious conceit—wedding the biblical fratricide of Abel by his brother Cain with the unsolved 1932 homicide of the father of Jerry Siegel, the creator of iconic comic book hero Superman—but the results are less than convincing. A highly tenuous link between the two murders revolves around the mysterious weapon Cain (the world's greatest villain) used to kill his brother. One of numerous theories is that the weapon was a divine book containing the secrets of immortality. After coming to the aid of a shooting victim, Calvin Harper, a homeless volunteer working in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., soon finds himself hopelessly caught up in a life-and-death quest for the ancient artifact that includes the obligatory secret societies, Nazi conspiracies, enigmatic villains and cryptographic riddles à la The Da Vinci Code. A glut of two-dimensional characters and a plot riddled with coincidences don't help. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–Meltzer builds suspenseful fiction on a previously little-explored historical nugget: Jerry Siegel, the teenage creator of Superman, lost his father in an unsolved murder in 1932. The author offers a compelling theoretical solution by way of an adult protagonist who is dealing with his conflicted feelings about his own father. Cal works for a rescue mission, picking up vagrants in need of shelter, when he stumbles across a man who turns out to be the father who abandoned him in childhood. The two men join forces in pursuit of what they believe is the lost Book of Cain, the weapon used in the Bibles original murder scene. Meltzer invokes multiple viewpoints as Cal, his father, a mysterious young woman who seems to have befriended the father, a rogue ex-cop, and a hot Federal agent converge on Cleveland in search of the biblical treasure. Teens with a taste for international conspiracies, religion-spouting bad guys, and identity-switching will enjoy this fast ride that leaves some solid and intriguing questions in the wake of its driving plot. Suggest this one to kids who enjoy the likes of Dan Brown, as well as superhero comics.–Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1 edition (September 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 044657788X
• ISBN-13: 978-0446577885
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (110 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #391,751 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing. Lots of action, not much sense., October 17, 2008

By 

Sandy Kay (Twin Cities, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Book of Lies (Hardcover)

I've been reading Brad Meltzer's books since the beginning and this was my least favorite by far. I'm not sure how he decided to combine the murder of the father of Superman's creator with the Biblical account of Cain and Abel, much less toss in a secret society that believes God gave Cain a powerful "book" that still exists. But he apparently got so excited he forgot to write a story that makes sense.

The characters are so busy running after each other, the clues and the Book that they don't stop to wonder if what they are doing makes sense. I think the author hoped his readers would do the same. But the more I read, the more things didn't make sense to me. Why would someone who should know better and has access to other guns shoot someone with a gun from a previous murder? And why did Ellis and his secret society need the clues they were chasing when they led to places they should have searched long before. There are more irritating things that didn't make sense but I don't want to give away the plot for those readers who are more willing to suspend skepticism to enjoy the book.

I enjoyed the book until it veered too far into woo-woo land and then I just wanted it to be done. Ultimately, it didn't work for me. At least the ending wasn't as ridiculous as I thought it might be. That's why I gave it 3 stars rather than 2.

I hope the author will go back to writing thrillers about "normal" things like greed, lust for power, corruption, revenge, etc. and forget the mystical stuff.

I recommend that fans of Brad Meltzer skip this book and re-read one of his earlier books.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Long Winded Speeches and Cliche Characters, October 6, 2008

By 

R. Novak (Catonsville, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Book of Lies (Hardcover)

Meltzer has a bad habit of giving his characters ungainly speeches and diatribes when they're in situations that would normally require immediacy. A parade of shallow, trite persons amble through the narrative: the estranged father, the angry abandoned son, the spunky single-mom cop, the emotionless assassin, etc., etc. The central plot concept could have been interesting, but here it's executed more like the novelization of a mediocre summer movie screenplay. Verdict - meh. Didn't throw it against the wall in frustration.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Horribly written and conceived, July 13, 2009

By 

Chris Kilbane "ckilbane" (Thousand Oaks, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Book of Lies (Mass Market Paperback)

This was the first book by Brad Meltzer I have read and will be the last.

The cover and title intrigued me, but the fascination ended there. As I read the book (hoping it would improve until finally I was so far in I decided I had to finish), I kept noting how ham-fisted it was written. Poor character introduction and development, leap-frogging to various characters without tying it all together and an overall ludicrous plot. In addition, it was written as if the author couldn't decide whether to make it a first person or overall story, he kept jumping from a third-party perspective to a first-person (using "I saw this..."), very annoying.

The straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was the introduction of the typical vindictive partner out for justice. Besides the introduction of this character 1/3 of the way through the book, her omni-present and "can do anything" side-kick in her ear was preposterous. Her "knack" for showing up everywhere, traveling all over the place and ordering all levels of law enforcement (local cops, FBI, etc) into action (this for a local DEA agent) just had me shaking my head in pity for the author.

Don't waste your time or money, I'm sorry I did.