Red Deuce

 After reading Thomas Roehlk’s second book, Fire Feud, I decided to read the first on in this series, Red Deuce. Red Deuce is the nickname given by a brother to his identical twin redheaded girls, the middle kids in a sibship of 10, Mandy and Reggie Doucette. The twins were 29 years old and still often chose to wear the same clothes just to get the reaction of people they were meeting for the first time. They had shared a bedroom for the whole lives except during their graduate school years and the beginning of their careers. Both were bright women, Mandy became and attorney and spent three years working for the Department of Justice, but then she returned to her roots in Chicago where she became the chief compliance officer for a very large corporation. Reggie had gone to med school and then became a forensic pathologist with the FBI. She had also returned to Chicago to live with her sister where the two of them shared the details of their lives and their love of running. They were beautiful and very eligible women.

 

This is a story of corporate corruption and espionage. Lurking behind some corporate troubles was an international conspiracy of spies. I thought the first few pages of the story were weak, but the characters were quickly developed, I found myself thoroughly enjoying Roehlk’s tale. This may not be great literature, but I was entertained by how the author developed his plot and subplots. There were five murders that had to be solved, and the twins were in danger for their lives, as well engaged in finding good men who became their marriage material. So, it’s also a love story.

The Secret of Secrets

 I just finished Dan Brown’s 688-page latest novel The Secret of Secrets, a title his protagonist Robert Langdon explains just as the book comes to an end. Although I was warned by a reader that I trust that this was not Dan Brown’s best work, I must strongly disagree. This was a page-turner and I got little else done until I finished, including staying up late and getting up early to keep reading. While he does seem to slip in some supernatural material to which I would normally object, I thought this all flowed well with his main theme. The main idea he pursues is that a new understanding of human consciousness is coming, based on longstanding human beliefs as well as very new scientific findings, all of which is being delivered by Katherine Solomon, Langdon’s colleague who has enticed him to meet her in Prague for a conference in which she is the headline speaker.

The findings suggested by Solomon have important implications for psychiatry, neurology, neuroscience, religion, spirituality, and politics. As you begin to read, it would be helpful to look up the term “noetic,” and perhaps contrast that with “intuition” since that is the point that Brown uses to dive into this  story. Noetic medicine is an important trend in modern medicine. Quickly we learn that Solomon is in danger by forces that feel endangered by the release of her ideas, a danger that Solomon had never anticipated and one that Langdon did not immediately understand. As a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst, this reviewer found the author’s dive into psychiatric terminology and diagnosis to be accurate for the most part. The discussion of brain chemistry is woven into the story, and that’s well done (this coming from someone who has been prescribing psychotropic medications for more than 50 years). He describes the universal fear of death as being critical to the consciousness of all humans.

 

This is a murder mystery and love story that is laid out with great characters and a perfectly designed plot. I’ll give Dan Brown an A+ on this work. Finally, Brown ties together the main plot and subplots with a most satisfying and optimistic view of what the new meaning of consciousness has for the future of human life. Could my first book in 2026 be the best of the year? Could be.