A secret worth killing for.A woman with no past.An act of treason that changed America.#1 bestselling author Brad Meltzer returns with THE HOUSE OF SECRETS When Hazel Nash was six years old, her father taught her: mysteries need to be solved. He should know. Hazel’s father is Jack Nash, the host of America’s favorite conspiracy TV show, The House of Secrets. Even as a child, she loved hearing her … as a child, she loved hearing her dad’s tall tales, especially the one about a leather book belonging to Benedict Arnold that was hidden in a corpse. Now, years later, Hazel wakes up in the hospital and remembers nothing, not even her own name. She’s told she’s been in a car accident that killed her father and injured her brother. But she can’t remember any of it, because of her own traumatic brain injury. Then a man from the FBI shows up, asking questions about her dad-and about his connection to the corpse of a man found with an object stuffed into his chest: a priceless book that belonged to Benedict Arnold. Back at her house, Hazel finds guns that she doesn’t remember owning. On her forehead, she sees scars from fights she can’t recall. Most important, the more Hazel digs, the less she likes the person she seems to have been. Trying to put together the puzzle pieces of her past and present, Hazel Nash needs to figure out who killed this man-and how the book wound up in his chest. The answer will tell her the truth about her father, what he was really doing for the government-and who Hazel really is. Mysteries need to be solved. Especially the ones about yourself.
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Very good with a different approach to a mystery. Not a lot of action but the thinking aspect is excellent.
What a weird, arresting, interesting book. The plot didn’t go anywhere I expected it to, which is great! It all started with a bedtime story. A creepy, gory, disturbing bedtime story told to six year old Hazel. Cut to a tragic car accident thirty-ish years later, when Hazel wakes up with a scrambled brain. She can remember some things, events and people, but the emotional ties are gone. As well as what she’d been up to in her secret life the last few years.
Not to give too much away, but Hazel’s journey to remember, to figure it all out, led to some disturbing discoveries about the “family business.” Her family wasn’t nearly what they seemed. Am I the only one that wants to know more about Mom?
The pace was quick, you certainly don’t have to wait too long to find out what is going on, but the mystery within a mystery, wrapped in amnesia and lies kept me interested the whole way through.
Love this authors writing style. Have read all his books
I have read all of Brad Meltzer’s books. This book is a little different from the others. It is more of a psychological thriller with a woman, Hazel Nash, as the main character. She is no Beecher White, one of my favorite characters, but she has her unique personality. A personality she has to dig out from within herself ever since the accident when her brain was injured. Is it true that the size of our amygdala can determine our personalities or predict certain behaviors? Do creased ear lobes lead to over-sized hearts that could explode in our bodies? Scientific anomalies such as these are included in the story. They make me wonder and think. And that’s what a book is supposed to do.
The action in the first half of the book is a little slow. We learn the back story of Hazel and her brother. Her father’s visits to volatile countries confuse Hazel. She sees that she has traveled to similar countries. While Hazel is a professor, her brother, Skip, follows in his father’s footsteps on TV. He loves attention and announces everything he does on social media. But is he so silly?
Soon we learn that everyone has ulterior motives. And whomever I suspect becomes a suspect at one time in the story until the facts bring Hazel her answers. She can remember people and events but not her feelings relating to them. She is on a journey to find herself and who killed her father. A conspiracy theory comes into play with Benedict Arnold and George Washington. It wouldn’t be a Brad Meltzer book without it.
The book is fun to read. It plays out nicely.
Did Brad Meltzer need a co-author? James Patterson might but not Brad Meltzer. But his work always comes out gold in the end.
I can’t recommend this book with five stars but will give it three. I was really enjoying it — I’ve never read Brad Meltzer before and got into the story very quickly. It was very fast moving — short chapters and most of them had a twist at the end. But about a little more than three-quarters of the way through, the reader is told what the “secrets” are. I was disappointed but kept going. This is just my opinion but I didn’t care for the ending — I read the last 40+ pages again and still was disappointed. If you are a fan of Brad Meltzer I think you will enjoy it but I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it.