Customer Reviews

The Puppet Master

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NASA scientist Alanna Mendes remains distraught by the death of her fiancé; in fact she feels getting up everyday overwhelming as she wants him back in her life. Computer guru Jay Alexei is a pariah who no one will touch because he hacked into a top secret data system. Financier David Collier would give up both his kidneys if one was a match for his daughter dying from a rare renal illness.

An unknown person contacts the trio. That individual offers each a deal they cannot refuse. They will receive their fondest wish in exchange for their services to right a wrong. Their benefactor claims nothing illegal is expected of them; just help on a top-secret project. However, the trio begins to question the intended consequences of their actions on innocent people.

This is a fast-paced action-packed morality play that grips the audience from the moment the offer is first made and never slows down. The reader and the lead trio contemplate ethics as no one except their employer and they will know what they did; no one will know who or what principles are violated except perhaps each one's personal values. Jan Coffey is at her suspenseful best with this intriguing deep allegorical thriller that asks whose ethics applies when the masses are kept in the dark as the threesome ponders to do or not to do knowing they will most likely not be caught.

Harriet Klausner

I've read in other reviews that this is a fast paced and action packed book. I wouldn't qualify it as so myself. The story is well constructed, interesting, and extremelly easy to read. The lightness is essentially given by the different stories told by the differents characters in the first part of the book. Nothing useless in this book, every detail written has its importance, doors are opened, explained, then nicely closed. Some could complain that everything is too perfectly wrapped at the end, I myself enjoyed it.
What really makes this work special is the character development. We meet people at crucial moments of their lives, we can easily get attached to them, we angst with them. I cannot say I identified myself with any of the characters, but I certainly got attached to them and by the end of the book I just wanted to know what happened after. About 3/4 of the book I was praying for the author to have found a way of completing the story without spoiling what he had constructed before. He (they) completelly managed to do it. This was my first Coffey book and I'm buying another one as we speak. Maybe not the best book I've ever read, but definetely an excellent way of investing 4/5 hours of my life.

Jan Coffey never ceases to amaze me. The plot builds so well, you are kept on the edge of your seat. This one did that for me. In the beginning you wonder how all of the characters fit together. All from different backgrounds and with different stories. It becomes a puzzle and the reader has to put it together. I kept trying to figure out who was the puppet master? How did the characters fit together? What were they going to have to do?
I have followed these authors for years and cannot get enough of thier writing. Cannot wait for the next one.

I read the Puppet Master in less than a day. Couldn't put it down. What an extraordinary weaving of story line. I couldn't guess the culprit at all. These two don't write fast enough for me, I am ready for monthly books of Jan Coffey!!

On the surface this is a fast-paced and intriguing thriller; underneath it poses interesting ethical questions. Coffey introduces us to several seemingly unrelated characters, each with a story of love, pain and struggle. As the book progresses, threads begin to connect the players in a tense and taut drama. There is an undercurrent of ambiguity. When is revenge justifiable, and when does it go too far? Some answers become clear by the end of the book and others remain to haunt the reader. A good read and good candidate for a book club discussion.