Bestseller Meltzer's third near-future Culper Ring thriller (after 2013's The Fifth Assassin) opens with a great dramatic image: First Lady Shona Wallace finding a severed arm in the White House Rose Garden. This grim discovery leads President Orson Wallace to consult Beecher White, a member of the Ring, which was founded by George Washington to "protect the presidency" and at present consists of only six members. The two men have a complicated relationship: Beecher once saved Wallace's life, but also believes that the chief executive committed a violent crime as a college student. Beecher agrees to help Wallace when he learns that the dead man's hand was clutching a flattened penny that could have a link to the mysterious death, many years before, of Beecher's father, who was a mechanic in the Army. Fans of historical conspiracy fiction will find a lot to like, but readers should be prepared for thin characters and a wildly over-the-top plot. 10-city author tour. Agent: Jill Kneerim, Kneerim, Williams & Bloom Agency. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Meltzer's third offering in his "Culper Ring" series (after The Inner Circle and The Fifth Assassin) is a taut political/conspiracy thriller. Beecher White, archivist and member of the secret Culper Ring, finds his search for the truth about his father's death converging with a plot to kill the president. The Culper Ring, originally created by George Washington as a covert spy operation during the Revolutionary War, exists to protect the presidency. Members are anonymous, thus preserving the ring's integrity. Beecher must pick his way through a minefield of relationships, never knowing whom to trust or fear as he seeks answers. Did his father die in an automobile accident as he was always told or was he murdered during a secret military experiment? And how does it relate to the severed arm found buried in the White House rose garden? VERDICT Readers will find it difficult to put this quick-paced page-turner down as they get pulled into the maze of deceit, intrigue, and conspiracy. Those who are new to the series should read the first two books. [See Prepub Alert, 12/15/14.]-Sandra Knowles, South Carolina State Lib., Columbia © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Meltzer's third political thriller featuring archivist Beecher White continues the ongoing battle to protect the presidency and quell a conspiracy linked to the amorphous Knights of the Golden Circle. While White's mentor and close friend, Tot Westman, lies comatose in a hospital bed, a killer is leaving notes with the names of past presidential assassins on dead bodies a clear threat to President Wallace. Meanwhile, problems mount: Mrs. Wallace digs up a severed arm in her garden with a coin in its fist (clue or smokescreen?); Nico (the insane killer from The Fifth Assassin) escapes custody, with daughter Clementine's help; and Beecher's old friend Marshall's loyalty is still in question. Numerous plot strands, multiple narrative perspectives, divided loyalties, a Devil's Island labor-camp nightmare from the past, and a psychotic killer add up to another chilling adventure from plotmaster Meltzer. A strong addition to the genre and a sure bet for the David Baldacci and James Grippando set, this is a high-energy page-turner, full of shocking violence and unrelenting peril: a stay-up-all-night nail-biter.--Baker, Jen Copyright 2015 Booklist

This third outing for the storied Culper Ring, sworn to protect the U.S. presidency, shows them doing what they do most: sniffing out conspiracies, falling for deceptions, and perpetuating that grandest of all American political institutions, the clueless double take. Orson Wallace is still president, Beecher White still toils in the National Archives, his mentor Aristotle "Tot" Westman still languishes in the hospital after getting shot in the head. But things have changed for Nico Hadrian, who failed in his attempt 10 years ago to assassinate the president and instead killed the first lady, who continues to talk to him after all these years. Nico recently escaped his padded cell at St. Elizabeth's mental institution, just in time to be on the loose when current first lady Shona Wallace turns up a severed human arm in a White House garden. After its opposite number turns up in quite a different location, the two arms are identified as those of Kingston Young, who killed himself two weeks ago. Or is Young really alive and masquerading as the late Tanner Pope's loose-cannon grandson, Ezra, a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a guild of assassins who trace their membership back to John Wilkes Booth? Meltzer attacks the web of conspiracies with an unbridled barrage of flashbacks, switching from past-tense to present-tense verbs, from first-person to third-person narratives, until you're as ready as poor Col. Doggett, whom Nico slowly tortures, to cry uncle and confess to all the terrible things you've done, just like everyone else in the Culper Ring, the Knights of the Golden Circle, and the Plankholders, for whom Doggett recruited Nico so long ago. Unlike the previous installment (The Fifth Assassin, 2013), this one doesn't provide much in the way of exposition but instead throws you unceremoniously into the deep end. Fans will survive, but unwary newcomers had better watch their backs. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.