Decoded "explores fascinating, unexplained questions. Is Fort Knox empty? Why was Hitler so intent on capturing the Roman "Spear of Destiny"? What's the government hiding in Area 51? Where did the Confederacy's $19 million in gold and silver go at the end of the Civil War? And did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone? Meltzer sifts through the evidence; weighs competing theories; separates what we know to be true with what's still - and perhaps forever - unproved or unprovable; and in the end, decodes the mystery, arriving at the most likely solution."
Meltzer's books are similar in nature to Decoded - they all have some sort of mystery to solve, with lots of twists and turns, action, and intrigue. The Fifth Assassin, chronicles the Culper Ring, a super secret society whose goal is to protect the presidency, not necessarily the president him/herself, a serial killer in an insane asylum, two boyhood friends and their history together growing up in Wisconsin, a female assassin with a mysterious and unknown form of cancer, the president & his trusted personal physician, and Abraham Lincoln.
Meltzer writes rich and believable characters. When he describes Beecher's friendship with Marshall, and the treehouse that Marshall received as a gift when he was a child, you can really envision how the treehouse looked and felt. And, Meltzer's descriptions of the adolescent boys who would gather in the treehouse to look at stolen porn magazines, you can really see the image of this in your head (and it is a pretty comical one too).
There are many twists and turns in the book with people double and triple crossing each other, lots of motives that are uncovered, alluded to, and remain somewhat hidden. Meltzer creates a multi-layered, political-thriller, mystery story full of interesting facts from history, peppered with the right amount of fiction, secret societies, and secret codes.
Here is an abbreviated passage from the book discussing playing cards and how they are playing a part in the mysterious killings of pastors and clergy who have all said prayers with the current president of the United States:
"Forget the eagle and what decorates the cards. I'm talking about what doesn't change. The modern suit symbols: hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades. In Italy, they used to be called cups, coins, swords, and batons. But those modern symbols - hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades - those were created in France back in the fifteenth century, by a knight named Étienne de Vignolles."
"A knight?" Tot asked.
"Not just any knight. One of France's most famous knights. A man who rode with Joan of Arc herself," the Diamond explained, noticing the change in Tot's posture. "This was a knight who served both church and king, and as the story goes - and I'm not saying I believe it - to test his loyalty, each side - church and king - entrusted Vignolles with their greatest secret. Vignolles was the chosen knight. So when it came to decorating the cards... his lasting legacy... he picked his symbols with great care. These days, most historians will tell you that the four suits represent the four classes of midieval society: Hearts were the sign of the church; diamonds were arrowheads, representing vassals and archers; clubs were husbandmen or farmers; and spades were the points of lances and therefore represented the knights, and by extension, the king. Others say Vignolles was just inventing a game, or that the symbols were a key to the knight's true loyalty. But there are a few who insist that Vignolles, when he was forced to choose between church and king, used the cards as a vehicle to deliver a hidden message."
"I'm lost. A message to whom?"
"To his fellow knights. To the others who he'd eventually entrust with his secret.... Have you ever really examined the court cards in a deck? Why does the king of diamonds have an axe, while all the rest have swords? Why are the jack of hears, the jack of spades, and the king of diamonds the only cards that appear in profile, while all the others are full face?"
"You're telling me that's a secret message?"...
"In just about every deck in the world, every face card - the jacks, the queens, all the other kings - they all have two hands. The king of hearts always has four - two of which are stabbing him with a sword, like he's stabbing himself. That's where we get the term suicide king from. But look closely. His sleeves don't match. He's not stabbing himself or committing suicide. He's being stabbed by someone else. Someone so hidden, the king can't see him coming." ... "They match another card in the deck... Those are the sleeves of the queen of spades."
"So the spades kill the hearts?"
"Or as Vignolles designed in his original symbols: the knights - and by extension the king - kill the church." ... "In Vignolles's original deck, and the decks that were passed down generation to generation, it wasn't king, queen, jack. It was king, knight, knave. That was the warning Vignolles was sending. The real killers of the church were the knights of the king. So if the church's greatest secret was to be protected, a new army had to be formed. A secret army..."
If you are looking for a Dan Brow-ish book to read that isn't overly hard to comprehend, that moves quickly, has lots of twists and turns, this book will not disappoint.
"Stories aren't the beauty of what did happen. They're the beauty of what could happen." --Brad Meltzer
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