The following interview was published in firstCLUE on June 8, 2023
June 13, 2023 will see the release of Danielle Trussoni’s The Puzzle Master, which, as I said in my review in our March 2 issue, is the best book I’ve ever read. I’m still recovering! Below, author Danielle Trussoni answers some questions about The Puzzle Master, her writing process, and her forthcoming work.—Henrietta Verma
Author photo copyright Leonardo Cendamo
With reviews, it’s hard to give away enough to engage readers but not provide any spoilers. Now I have the chance to see how you’ll tread the line! Please tell our readers about your book.
It’s true that it’s hard to give the flavor of a novel without giving away too much, but let me try.
The Puzzle Master is a contemporary thriller set in New York. We open as the protagonist, Mike Brink, an ingenious puzzle solver, arrives at a prison upstate. He’s been called there because an inmate—a woman named Jess Price, who’s been convicted of murder—has drawn a mysterious puzzle that has baffled her psychiatrist, and she believes Brink can solve it.
But when he meets the incarcerated woman, Brink is pulled into a mystery, one that revolves around an ancient prayer circle known as The God Puzzle. What he soon learns is that this prayer circle is very important to a very powerful man who will do anything to get it. Needless to say, Brink has gotten himself into something he wasn’t expecting!
The Puzzle Master centers on a character whose ability to make and solve extremely challenging puzzles started with a brain injury. You formed a fascinating character whose acquired savant syndrome is central to the plot, but without creating a Rain Man-like caricature. Can you tell us about writing the character of Mike Brink?
Mike Brink is the hero of the novel, and he’s really the lynchpin around which everything happens, both in terms of action and the larger philosophical point of the book.
What drew me to create him was, as you mentioned, Savant Syndrome, a medical condition in which a person develops new talents after a traumatic brain injury. Once I began reading about this syndrome, I was completely fascinated.
I learned that while it is rare, the abilities people develop are astonishing—being able to play classical music, being able to speak foreign languages, and—like Brink— astonishing mathematical and mnemonic abilities. Brink’s ability to solve puzzles is more than just a party trick. He needs to engage his brain in the process of solving puzzles. It’s almost like an addiction, and indeed, the same chemicals that are involved in addictive behaviors are involved in Brink’s puzzle solving (most prominently dopamine).
While I was fascinatedby this element of the brain, I felt very strongly that Brink is like all of us.
Our ability to think, perceive, and experience reality are such rich gifts, but we only fully understand a tiny fraction of what’s going on inside our heads.
Brink struggles with the fact that he’s got this nuclear brain power and is also someone who longs for human connection, something that his injury makes difficult.
I think that the character that emerges shows the struggle that all of us face when balancing the cerebral with the irrational, the material world with the spiritual, and the physical nature of being human with our need for love and connection.
Your book is uncanny in its ability to see inside readers and bring our fears and secret beliefs to the page. I’m almost afraid to ask, but how did you do that?
When I’m writing, I want to feel that I’m exploring strong emotions—fear, wonder, love, desire, awe. The characters I choose and the stories that most attract me act (in some ways) as vehicles for these feelings. It seems to me that if I feel something intense or inspiring about the story I’m writing, then readers will too. So I guess the answer to your question is: I explore my own fears and my own secret beliefs, and it resonates with readers.
On the Mysteries, Chills, and Thrills panel of Penguin Random House’s recent Book and Author Festival, you talked about visiting Will Shortz at his home. Can you tell us about visiting the real puzzle master?
When I began writing about Mike Brink, I knew that I needed to do some intensive research. I’m not a puzzle savant, and I’m actually quite bad at math.
So a friend introduced me to Will Shortz, the real puzzle master who is editor of the New York Times Games Page, and I asked him if he might be open to talking to me about his life. As it turned out, he invited me to his home and took me on a little tour of his puzzle library. There were puzzles everywhere!! Crosswords and books of number puzzles and antique puzzles. A first edition of the first book of crosswords ever published. It was amazing to see how someone who is totally immersed in the world of puzzles and conundrums lives and works. Meeting him was enormously helpful in making Mike Brink feel real.
You also mentioned that you were in Japan researching your next book. Anything you can give away about that title?
I was in Japan in April doing research for the next Mike Brink novel. It’s called The Puzzle Box [it will be published on September 3, 2024], and in it we find Mike Brink invited to Japan to solve one of the world’s most elusive and difficult puzzle: The Dragon Puzzle Box.
This puzzle box was constructed in the 19th century by the emperor of Japan, and has since then been locked hut The treasure inside is valuable in ways that Brink could never have imagined and, like the puzzle in The Puzzle Master, opens up a dangerous situation for Brink.
What excites me most about this book is that I’m able to explore Brink’s character, and the repercussions of his abilities, more deeply, while also writing about Japan, a place I love.
