Puzzleman: A Novel by Christopher Alan Broadstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amanda Zimmerman is a woman who has been through a lot in her lifetime, the worst being losing her child and after some years grieving this, she begins to have a feeling that something isn’t right about it. John Rainbow is a professor of history who experienced young love in France with Jeanette Orfèvre, a vintner during World War II where he saw shadows in the beauty of the town and the dark cathedral overshadowing it.

As Amanda is figuring out what happened to her child, she keeps experiencing, visions, smells, thoughts and feelings and events which are testing her sanity, so she returns to where she first started grieving, but things don’t go as smoothly as she hoped. This is where Ben Henfry, an ex-detective who knows something is wrong as soon as he runs into Amanda and sees her unusual behaviour, little does he know that she will draw him into a world he could never have expected or imagined. Meanwhile, she goes to see Professor Rainbow, an old acquaintance of the father of her child, however, he doesn’t seem to want to, or be able to help her, so she continues on.

It is at this point that the professor realises that he needs to revisit his past and reconnect with Jeanette and face up to his loneliness, but first, after an encounter with Ben Henfry, he tries to find Amanda and also his old and now legless friend, however, what he finds in nothing he could ever imagine or expect. It is at her lowest point that Amanda is confronted with the truth of her recent behaviour and the Puzzleman decides to show her the reality of what he has been pushing into her mind and so in the sewers , Amanda and another are drawn deep into the world of the Puzzleman and the Gruemonsters he has created within it, creatures ever living in a state of disparate features, pain, delirium and delight as the Puzzleman reigns over them and the Professor watches them be taken, knowing that the other person is his old friend.

As these tangled lives intertwine, they are drawn deeper into the reality and history of the Puzzleman, his gruesome world and the mystery surrounding it, but will they be able to stop him and keep their sanity intact or will the go the same way as the Gruemonsters, after all no one is sane down a drain and down a drain no one is sane!

Reviewed by @roxsannel

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