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.

Fire Feud

 Fire Feud is the second novel by Thomas Roehlk, but now that I’ve enjoyed that murder mystery published in 2025, I’m going to find his first novel, Red Deuce which was published in 2024.

 This story involves two construction companies that have been rivals for more than 100 years, and under suspect circumstances, one of them has consistently underbid and won the major construction projects while the other has played second fiddle to those biggest deals. The founders of the companies, both immigrants from different companies, had learned to hate each other while they were helping to dig the Erie Canal. At the conclusion of that project, they went separate ways although both continued to work mostly on canal projects until they both ended up founding construction companies in Chicago. It was during a current major dig in Chicago that a body was discovered, hidden in the pilings of a bridge abutment. It turned out to be a man who had been the founder of one of those companies.

 

Patrick Carney was thought to have perished in the 1871 fire that devastated the city, The Great Chicago Fire, but his body was never recovered. By legend, it had been Mrs. O’Leary’s cow that knocked over a lantern which set the city on fire. Roehlk wrote that it now looked as if the fire had not killed him, but that he was murdered, and his body had been purposefully hidden. Meanwhile, more murders happened involving the two families who had been feuding with each other since the two companies had been founded Frank Wagner was the founder of the company that had been significantly more successful than the other. Could he have been involved in the 1871 disappearance of Mr. Carney?

 

Meanwhile, an important subplot was developing. The term Red Deuce was a reference to identical twin redheaded sisters. One of them was an attorney who worked for the more successful company and the other was a forensic pathologist employed by the FBI. They lived together in Chicago and were sometimes involved in the same cases, and both were very eligible women in their 30s.

 

Good plot, good characters. I recommend this one highly. I thought the book should have been dedicated to Mrs. O’Leary since it absolved her of having caused the fire that killed hundreds of people and destroyed most of Chicago.

Fortune Favors the Dead

 Fortune Favors the Dead is the first of a five-book (so far) series regarding the detective team of Lillian Pentecost and Will Parker. I’ve already reviewed books two and three and I wish I had read them in the order that they were published. The books do work as stand-alone novels, but if you don’t read them in order, then you would miss some of the character development that the author, Stephen Spotswood has written so skillfully. This book introduces the primary characters and gives the history of their lives before they teamed up, and there’s a quick review of some of the cases that they solved in the three years since they met and this story occurs in 1945. Pentecost is the wise detective, now 45 years old and suffering from slowly advancing muscular dystrophy. She is widely recognized as the best detective in NYC if not the whole world, and Parker is her talented protégé. 

 

Spotswood has developed fascinating characters including the unlikely pairing of Pentecost and Parker. It’s a great plot which I choose not to give away, and I certainly did not see the very late twist that changed the perspectives that these two females sleuths had uncovered over the course of the book. This novel gets my highest recommendation.

Hold Strong

 

Hold Strong is the latest novel by Robert Dugoni that I’ve reviewed. I’m impressed with the wide variety of genres that he has tackled. This one is historical fiction, a WWII novel that mostly takes place in the Pacific theater. I’ve probably read several hundred WWII novels although most have been stories that took place in the European arena. This is a sentimental story of heroism and love that must have truly taken place thousands of times during the course of the war. A young couple from rural Minnesota has just graduated from high school and it was their plan to return to Eagle Grove and continue their family tradition of being farmers. Then WWII happened and it changed both of their lives in immeasurable ways.

 

Dugoni tracked the most interesting lives of Sam Carlson and Sarah Haber. Although this book is fiction, Dugoni wrote with accuracy about the lives that they lived. This story touches the lives of so many people I knew from that same generation, including my parents. While I knew so many of the true events to which Dugoni placed his characterts, I had never heard of the “hell boats” that the Japanese used to transport POWs or the decision by the US Government to sink those boats although they knew so many POWs were being kept there. The thinking at the time that if they selectively saved the “hell boats” that the Japanese would figure out that the US had broken their communication codes, which would cause the Japanese to change the codes and thus prolong the war.

 

To complete your own knowledge about life and at home during the Pacific battles of WWII, I highly recommend this novel.

Secrets Typed in Blood

 Secrets Typed in Blood by Stephen Spotswood is the third book of his five-book series, The Pentecost and Parker Mystery Series. This story takes place in 1947 in New York City where the world’s greatest detective, Lillian Pentecost, lives and maintains her office. Will Parker is her young protégé and the two of them have formed a formidable detective team. They continue to be hired by people who either don’t want to go to the police with their problems, or the police had simply been unable to solve their problems, usually murders. A successful crime writer, Holly Quick discovered that someone was acting out her murder mysteries in real life. She felt violated to have to her ideas stolen.

 The cases are complex, but never too complicated for the remarkable Ms. Pentecost. Pentecost has muscular dystrophy which is slowly getting worse, and she is very dependent on Will for all of the leg work required of such an occupation. There are multiple copycat murders, and then one occurs when it is fresh off Ms. Quick’s typewriter, before it had even been published.

 

Spotswood has filled out his story with interesting characters surrounding both Ms. Quick and the detectives. The plot is well designed and I certainly did not see the end coming before I got there. The writing of Spotswood is starting to grow on me. Now, I’ve acquired the first book in the series, Fortune Favors The Dead. While these books do work as stand-alone novels, I think it makes more sense to read them in the order in which they’ve been published.

The Last Adam

 The Last Adam by Ron Echols is a modern era story about the second coming of Christ. The title of the book is a biblical reference to Jesus. It is written from a Christian perspective regarding the battle between good and evil. Nonearthly forces are called in on both sides of the battle as those same sides anticipate the birth of a new baby human who will be the force that turns the Earth into an example of success of the forces of good when the longstanding battle by the evil forces had slowly been winning that struggle during recent centuries. Mary and Joseph find one another to bring a male child into the world and it is their goal to keep the infant safe until he can begin to teach mankind the good values of Christianity. 

I am probably not the right person to write this review given that I’m not a Christian, and I certainly don’t trust the values of Christianity given the history of corruption and cruelty that has followed organized Christian churches, be they Catholic or Protestant. However, I was asked to review the book and report my thoughts about it. In a short comment, it is perhaps the worst book I’ve ever read. It might sell well in Christian bookstores, but I have trouble imagining that it would do well in any other retail setting. This story was a repetition of a 2,000-year-old-myth and was certainly not my cup of tea.

Murder Under Her Skin

 I read about the Pentecost and Parker Mystery Series by Stephen Spotswood in the New York Book Review, and the 5^th book Dead in the Frame was ranked as the best crime novel of 2025. The author raved about the whole series, so rather than jump into the fifth book, I found the second and third books on Libby and began to listen during my early morning dog walks. I’ve finished the second book, Murder Under Her Skin, and now I’ve started the third, Secrets Typed in Blood, and I’ve just gotten the first one, Fortune Favors the Dead. Meanwhile, the best crime novel of the year is sitting in my Audible account just waiting for me. I’ll review these in the order that I’m reading them. 

In Murder Under Her Skin, the reader meets the world-famous detective Lillian Pentecost and her protégé, Willojean Parker, as they learn of a murder that has occurred in a travelling circus. This just happens to be the traveling circus to which Willojean, Will, escaped from her very dysfunctional family as a young teen. The victim was Ruby Donner, the tattooed circus woman, a fascinating character who had been so loved by nearly the entire circus family, including Will. The main suspect had been Will’s circus mentor, a knife throwing expert. After being a part of the tight circus family for several years, as the circus was dying, Will had left for a better opportunity as an assistant to Ms. Pentecost. But, the circus people had always been loving and supportive of Will, effectively her surrogate parents. She expected to be as much a the part of that circus family as when she had lived with them, but Will soon learned that there were lots of secrets that were being kept from her. During her five years with Pentecost, Will had proven herself to be a hard worker and a very gifted detective herself.

 

The story took place on the East Coast during the 1940s. All of the characters in the circus were fascinating, and there was clearly competition among them for being the most desirable performer. I thought it was a fun read or I would not have acquired more of the books in the series. Still, I’m intrigued by the notion of getting to the “best crime novel” of the year. At Men Reading Books, we’ve reviewed more than 1800 books, most of them crime/mystery/thriller novels, more than 100 of those this year alone, and we’ve written about our favorite authors including Daniel Silva, Louise Penny, C.J. Box, Michael Connelly, Brad Thor, Charlie Stella, Greg Iles, James Lee Burke, John Grisham, Lee Child, Jonathan Kellerman, Robert Crais, and about 1,000 more. Are these stories by Spotswood better than those authors, or even as good as them? I’ll need to see more of his work before I rate him as the equal of than those others. However, I am titillated to have a new body of work to learn about, and at least my initial impression is favorable. I have been duly entertained.