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Summary
Summary
Solomon Creed, the enigmatic hero introduced in The Searcher, must stop a killer tied to a conspiracy stretching back over generations to the dying days of World War II.
Solomon Creed has no recollection of who he is, or where he comes from. The only solid clue to his identity is a label stitched in his jacket that reads: "This suit was made to treasure for Mr. Solomon Creed."
The jacket fits perfectly, and so does the name, but there is a second name on the label, the name of the tailor who made the suit and an address in southern France. Solomon heads to France in search of this man, hoping to discover more about who he is. But instead of answers he finds a bloody corpse, the Star of David carved into his chest and the words "Finishing what was begun" daubed in blood on the wall.
When the police discover Solomon at the crime scene they suspect he is the murderer and lock him up. Solomon must escape to clear his name and solve the mystery of why the last remaining survivors of a notorious Nazi death camp are being hunted down and murdered. Only by saving these survivors from evil can Solomon hope to piece together the truth about a decades-old conspiracy as well as discover the key to his own identity.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Toyne's meticulously researched if flawed sequel to 2015's The Searcher takes amnesiac mystery man Solomon Creed to southern France, in search of a tailor, Josef Engel, who possesses the only clue to his past: an impeccably constructed white jacket with his name stitched on the label. Creed arrives to find Josef-who was one of the few survivors of a notorious Nazi concentration camp-brutally murdered, with a Star of David carved in his chest. Vowing to protect Josef's daughter and grandson from harm, Creed sets out to solve the mystery of who's killing off the last remaining survivors of the death camp-and why. Excerpts from a survivor's journal accentuate the horrors of the past. But while the themes explored are profoundly moving and timely given the rise of right-wing nationalism throughout the world, the backstory surrounding Creed as some kind of messianic figure comes across as convoluted and contrived. Agent: Alice Saunders, LAW Agency. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Second book in the Solomon Creed series (The Searcher, 2015), this imaginative thriller takes root in the Holocaust and sprouts in modern-day France.Josef Engel bleeds to death from a Star of David carved into his chest, and the killer uses Engel's blood to write "Finishing what was begun" in German on a wall. Engel had been one of four tailors in Die Schneider LagerThe Tailor's Campin a concentration camp. He "should have died in the camp" 70 years ago, says his killer, one of the men searching for Die AnderenThe Others, the survivors, who for a mysterious reason must all be killed. Enter Solomon Creed, a strange and pigment-free "pale man" whom the police suspect in the murder. He is a "high-functioning paranoid schizophrenic" with an "off the charts" IQ, a phenomenal "know-it-all mind," and no idea who he really ishis only clue is the label inside his perfectly fitting jacket saying it was "made to treasure for Mr. Solomon Creed." He can't remember that it came from tailors grateful that he had rescued them from a concentration camp, including Josef Engel. That's because his psychiatrist, Dr. Cezar Magellan of the Institute of Criminal Psychology, has implanted a device in his shoulder to remove toxic memories. Creed goes looking for the man who made his jacket, but he arrives too late. Meanwhile, Engel's granddaughter, Marie-Claude, lives with her superhero-loving 7-year-old son, Lo, and apart from her abusive criminal ex-husband, Jean Baptiste. Creed protects them and finds a commonality with Lo: they both have forms of synesthesia. Creed can smell danger, while Lo sees emotions as colors in the same way Engel did. To Lo, "Nice people have bright colors," and bad people don't. Why Solomon Creed can return 70 years after the Holocaust is a mystery that won't bother readers at all. He just does, and the bad guys will have to deal with it. Brains beat brawn in this engrossing yarn, and a mind without a memory makes Toyne's hero a hard character towell, to forget. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Solomon Creed, or the man who thinks his name might be Solomon Creed (The Searcher, 2015), returns. This time he's headed for a beautiful hilltop town in southwestern France to find the tailor who crafted his perfect-fitting suit coat, thinking he may have information that could confirm Creed's identity. On arrival, Creed learns that the aged tailor has just been murdered, a Star of David carved on his chest. The tailor's granddaughter Marie-Claude tells him that the tailor was one of five survivors of a Nazi death camp and reports that the entire family is being persecuted by a nativist right-wing political party. Creed vows to help them. The plotting doesn't always cohere this time, especially the backstory about Creed's memory, but Toyne knows how to skirt a plot hole with a twisty story line, engaging characters, and occasional nods to the paranormal. Readers willing to suspend disbelief will love the action and look forward to the next Creed.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2017 Booklist
