Mosaic [Mass Market Paperback]

Gayle Lynds (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1999

Praised by writers from Clive Cussler to Sue Grafton, Gayle Lynds has emerged as a leading star of suspense fiction. Her bestselling debut novel Masquerade was hailed as "gloriously paranoid, immensely satisfying" (The Los Angeles Times). Now Lynds brings the international thriller to an electrifying new level with this bullet-fast tale.

While giving a gala performance at London's Royal Albert Hall, blind concert-pianist Julia Austrian's sight returns as mysteriously as it disappeared ten years earlier when she was struck by a rare psychological disorder. But her euphoria shatters when she witnesses her mother's murder -- a trauma that hurls her back into her dark and lonely world.

Blind, yet the only person who can identify the killer, Julia abandons her celebrated life, regains her sight through hypnosis, and joins maverick CIA analyst Sam Keeline to piece together a series of seemingly random acts that form a vast and terrifying puzzle that threatens America's political system.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A punchy prologue to this disappointing romantic thriller pits ex-spy Sam Keeline, psychosomatically blind concert pianist Julia Redmond Austrian, and her peppery grandfather, Lyle Redmond, against her wealthy, wicked Redmond uncles. The plot coils around the final four days of Uncle Creighton's race for the U.S. presidency, during which Julia suddenly regains her sight but loses it again after witnessing a horrendous crime. Two mysteries are buried in the heart of this overcomplicated story: What originally caused Julia's blindness? And what happened to Russia's famed Amber Room, a treasure from the Winter Palace that disappeared from a Nazi train at the end of WWII and for which Sam, Julia's love interest, has long searched? Lynds (Masquerade) writes splendid action scenes, but though she expertly rides the roller coaster of Julia's alternately blind and seeing states, the off-again on-again affliction is hard to believe. Clever twists keep the fast-paced plot going for a while, but eventually it's weighed down with too many characters and too much repetition.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Concert pianist Julia Austrian's blindness, which tends to come and go in times of stress, is only one of the mysteries woven through this second thriller from Lynds (Masquerade, LJ 12/95). Like Elizabeth Lowell's Amber Beach (Avon, 1997), the focus of the excitement is the Nazi theft of artifacts from the fabled Amber Room in one of Russia's imperial palaces at the end of World War II. With the help of Sam Keeline, a disillusioned CIA agent, Julia discovers the connection between her grandfather and the murky origins of her family's wealth. But an assassin pursues her from London to Washington, and the scandalous implications of her discoveries lead to the highest levels of government and law enforcement on both sides of the Atlantic. Though the timing of Julia's recurring blindness sometimes seems contrived, the excitement of the chase and the deviousness of both sides are satisfying. Fans of Robert Ludlum, Linda Howard, and Tami Hoag will find this an exciting read.AKim Uden Rutter, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books (November 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067102406X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671024062
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #588,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Welcome to my author page. I'm the New York Times bestselling author of award-winning international espionage novels -- spy thrillers -- but when I was growing up, I had no idea ordinary people wrote books. I thought that was the literary turf of dead people, and if not them, then certainly gods and goddesses.

Despite my youthful conclusions, I still dreamed of creating the sorts of novels that would transport people to other worlds, other experiences, and leave them not only truly satisfied but feeling smarter, as I did when I read a really good tale.

Today I've published some eight novels, with a ninth on the way -- The Book of Spies, due out March 30, 2010, from St. Martin's Press. How did I get so lucky? I began writing literary short stories that were published in small journals. The discipline propelled me onward, and here I am today, creating adventure stories about London and Paris, Washington, D.C. and Rome. With me you can travel the world in my books, examining the clandestine world of spies, criminals, and secret power that quietly and importantly impacts all of us.

Some basic facts. My books have won such awards as "Novel of the Year" (THE LAST SPYMASTER) given by the Military Writers Society of America and the American Authors Associations, and have been People magazine "Page-Turner of the Week" and "Beach Read of the Week." Publishers Weekly lists MASQUERADE as among the top ten spy novels of all time. BookPage concurs: "Gayle Lynds has joined the deified ranks of spy thriller authors like Robert Ludlum and John le Carre." With Bob Ludlum, I created the Covert-One series and wrote three of the novels. One of them, THE HADES FACTOR, was a CBS miniseries in April 2006.

I'm a member of the Association for Intelligence Officers and co-founder and former co-president (with David Morrell) of International Thriller Writers. Born in Nebraska, raised in Iowa, I now live on the side of a hill in Southern California.

Thank you for dropping by. Please visit my website at www.GayleLynds.com to test your Spy-Q, visit my World of Espionage, and sign up for cool prizes.

Warm regards, Gayle

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nobody Does it Better than Gayle Lynds, October 25, 2005

By 

Zachary Hackett (Reno, Nevada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mosaic (Mass Market Paperback)

MOSAIC is a fast written, well plotted international thriller that will have you burning the midnight oil as you zip through all of the twists and turns in Ms. Lynds fine book. It's also a woman in peril story, a kind of romance and a bit of a mystery. Ms. Lynds has packed a lot of craft into MOSAIC, but that's not surprising, she's one heck of a writer and one heck of a character painter.

MOSAIC is peopled with a good gal, a good guy, lots of bad guys, one very bad gal, and one reformed bad buy. The goodies are blind concert pianist Julia Austrian and CIA analyst Sam Keeline. The baddies are: Presidential candidate Creighton Redmond, his son CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence Vince Redmond, Creighton's brothers, one who yearns for Alan Greenspan's job, the other who wants to be Secretary of Commerce, a deadly black widow type professional female assassin, a group of ex-CIA assassins called the Janitors, and a top detective in Scotland Yard. And the bad guy who wants a place in heaven is Creighton's father, ageing Lyle Redmond who made his fortune by stealing Nazi treasures after WW II. There you have the people, oh yes, I forgot to mention, Julia's mother is sister to the Redmond brothers which makes Lyle her grandfather and Vince her cousin. Lots of people, all expertly portrayed.

On stage at the Royal Albert Hall, Julia suddenly gets her sight back. After the concert her mother is killed in a mugging, Julia is spared as the mugger, Maya Stern the female assassin, believes her blind. Stern is after a package that old Lyle sent from the retirement home where his sons are keeping him prisoner so they can control his vast fortune. The package contains his journal which tells where the Redmond fortune came from, bad news for all those Redmonds who yearn for so much, especially with the election only four days away.

The shock of seeing her mother killed causes Julia to lose her sight again. However she happens to tell just the wrong Scotland Yard guy that she'd seen the assassin. Now the Redmond brothers have to decide, are their ambitions more important than their niece's life. Julia comes up the loser and they sick Stern, the Janitors and the whole CIA on a hunt for her. Fortunately she meets up with Keeline. Together, they must evade the forces allied against them, stop an election, right past wrongs and somehow survive.

Meanwhile,old Lyle escapes from that retirement home.

I know this all sounds like a lot and a lesser writer couldn't pull of a thriller of this magnitude, but Lynds is a pro who grabs her readers with the first paragraph and holds them by the scruff of the neck, refusing to let go until well after the book is finished. She gives you a lot to think about and one thing is for sure, you'll never look a presidential politics in quite the same way after you finish this book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mosaic is fine thriller, a really good read., February 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mosaic (Paperback)

When your bedside clock tolls three a.m. and you're still reading Lynds'MOSAIC, you almost wish for the psychological blindness that overwhelms her engaging heroine at the worst possible moments. Then you could get some sleep. No such blessing befell me. I read, bleary-eyed, until Lynds unraveled the myriad plot twists for me. Why do plot threads of murder, blackmail, fabulous World War II treasure, political skullduggery, and an attempt to steal the Presidency of the U.S. cord themselves round a beautiful concert pianist, until they're almost a hangman's noose? You'll just have to read and find out. And did I mention romance and sex?

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Starts slow -- picks up feverishly once the stage is set!, July 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Mosaic (Mass Market Paperback)

4 stars because Lynds was able to package the myriad of subplots into a nice neat package at the end. Very well done, but confusing in the beginning.

Protagonist Julia Austrian is a brilliant concert pianist who is mysteriously stricken with a rare psychological condition known as "conversion disorder" (explained in detail in the author's note at the conclusion of the book). She has been blind for ten years, regains her sight suddenly before a performance, only to lose it again when she witnesses her mother's brutal murder. I know this plot sounds questionable but (1) this psychological condition is very real and (2) Lynds is very talented. She makes it work beautifully without putting all of us through the wringer.

This was a terrific read. My only pet peeves...

(1) It seemed slow at the beginning. I noticed the action picked up for me about 100 or so pages into it when Julia meets Sam Keeline, a maverick CIA analyst who saves her life (in more ways than one).

(2)The many confusing subplots that are introduced in the prologue did not give me a very good first impression of this book. I felt Lynds threw too much at me at once and I was ready to put this back on the shelf for another time (I don't handle overwhelm very well!).

(3) Creighton Redmond's character seemed a bit too one-dimensional to me. His corrupted arm had a very long (Inspector Gadget-like) reach. I found it hard to believe that someone, even a politician, would act so desperately and go to such grave lengths to win an election, but hey, I suppose anything is possible...and the very talented Lynds leaves the door open to those possibilities.

Despite these personal objections, I really enjoyed this book and would definitely pick it up again to recapture some of its many spectacular moments...especially those wonderful intimate interactions between Julia and Sam, and of course, the musings of my favorite character, Lyle Redmond (who you'll have to meet for yourself..he's a real kick!).

Cris