The Book of Lies (Hardcover)

by Brad Meltzer (Author)
Key Phrases: missing child, dad blurts, crimson triangle, Jerry Siegel, Mitchell Siegel, Ann Maura (more...)

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.)
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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.

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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: 9.9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #209,419 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 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

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.

6 of 7 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)

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.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well Imagined..., December 16, 2008

By	Phyllis Rhodes (Orlando, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Book of Lies by bestselling author Brad Meltzer is a fantastical tale that combines a DaVinci Code-like mystery with an Indiana Jones-like adventure. The author blends the age old Biblical mystery surrounding Cain's curse and/or his "mark" and the first murder weapon (all of which are unnamed in the Bible) with a modern myth surrounding the unsolved murder of Jerry Siegel's father (the creator of Superman).

At the heart of the story is a son whose life is interrupted at age nine by the accidental death of his bi-polar mother at the hands of his ill-tempered father. The father is imprisoned and offers no contact with the child. Nineteen years pass when on a seemingly random call to rescue a homeless man, father and son are haphazardly reunited, and the roller coaster ride begins. The father has been shot; they whisk him away to a hospital where suspicious characters emerge. In the span of a few pages, our "heroes" are afoot -- ducking bullets and alligators in the Florida swamps, running for their lives to avoid murder charges of a federal agent, and following a myriad of clues which lead to Cleveland, Ohio in an effort to solve the mystery and clear their names -- all while the police, a customs agent, and an evil, psychotic, Hemlock-wielding henchman (who has an equally vicious dog) are in hot pursuit.

The results are a little overreaching at times -- cliffhanger endings at the end of each chapter, too many coincidences to the point that I lost count, and a host of cardboard, melodramatic characters are used to buoy and move the story. However, if you can keep an open mind and have a love of suspense, I think you'll be moderately entertained with this fairly easy read.

Reviewed by Phyllis
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