Book Review: The Grand Puppet Master

Reviewed by Toni Woodruff

A speedy, twisty technothriller with mind-controlling AI and enough secrets to blow your mind

Lacey Green isn’t a detective—or at least she didn’t train to be—but she’s got the drive and ability to stop evil. She’s also got someone who believes in her, someone who just so happens to be the best special visual effects artist in New York. One body suit later and Lacey Green is breaking open a giant illegal sex ring in Flushing, NY and posting it as a groundbreaking TikTok detective.

Little does she know, this body-doubling is about to quadruple or more. 

When her father dies of a mysterious suicide, she ignores his cryptic message about danger in Hong Kong and heads off to bury him anyway. Days later, she’s trapped in quarantine lockdown with her flighty mother—who’s already asking for inheritance money—and the obvious fact that her dad has been keeping things from her.

The first of which is that he’s a millionaire with an insane penthouse apartment and enough secrets to cover the floor. Was he good? It sure seemed like it. Did he create a brain-chip that controls people? Definitely. So how much is he responsible for who is using it and for what gain? Oh, and why are people eating their hands?

The twists are just getting started. Lacey is in constant danger, so in a way, she’s just trying to stay alive and free, but in another, she doesn’t run away from the life-threatening investigation. The stakes are both personal and global, and there’s no one to trust. Since it remains a mystery if Shawn (Lacey’s dad) was playing a role in the evil scheme or just caught in the middle of it, each character who shows up to try to help Lacey could be two-timing her. The amount of twists and reveals will give you whiplash.

Mysteries run amok in The Grand Puppet Master. They’re always developing, getting consistently more dangerous and strange, and they complicate what we thought we knew about these people we’ve grown to like. 

It seems like Lacey is the only one we can trust though—our hero, a bold, brave, intelligent risk-taker—until it becomes her flighty mom too. Michelle is a firecracker of a character from the moment she steps on scene, but there’s more goodness to her than she lets on. I can’t help but appreciate what she does for this narrative. 

And believe me when I say this: The surprises never stop! This is a backstabbing, body-doubling relentlessly paced thriller. You won’t believe the amount of change the story goes through by the 50% mark of the novel. Where could it go from there? To dark, sensationalized places.

With as many twists as this novel, there is room for some head-scratching decisions and explanations. The sexualization of the novel is dark and includes some triggering material that sensitive readers should be aware of. These scenes can feel more like they’re invoking shock than fitting in naturally sometimes, and the second half of the novel slows down the pace a bit. But the story of the badass amateur detective saving the world from mind-control ultimately wins the day.

With this promising debut, Eddie Shay establishes himself as a worthy puppeteer, capable of controlling intricate plot-lines and putting on a good show.

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