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Salem Wiley and Bel Odegaard grew up together as best friends; their moms, Vida and Grace, best friends too. They’ve not seen each other as much for a few years with Bel’s job in law enforcement taking her to Chicago and Salem staying in Minneapolis. Then one night, both their mothers are kidnapped, one likely murdered, and Salem and Bel have to flee for their own lives, at the same time trying to work together to figure out why their mothers were targeted.
What they learn is that Grace and Vida were involved in an ancient society existing to stop another ancient and powerful society whose primary aim is to keep women in their places, particularly out of high positions. That includes at the moment the group’s plot to assassinate Senator Gina Hayes, a female presidential candidate poised to win the election and become the first woman president of the United States.
Salem, with degrees in computer science and mathematics with an emphasis in cryptanalysis, has just the skills necessary to decode a message left by her mother. That leads her on a whole trail of codes taking her and Bel to Massachusetts, San Francisco, and Virginia, and involving even Emily Dickinson and the famous Beale Cipher. They are shocked to learn about the secret societies and their mothers’ involvement even as they worry about whether Vida and Grace are alive. They must solve the codes, stay out of the murderous clutches of highly skilled assassins, and save not just Vida or Grace but Senator Hayes.
Salem’s Cipher is a somewhat serviceable thriller, but it felt uneven. One big problem was that I had a difficult time believing a secret society has existed for centuries to keep women in their place; that simply hasn’t been necessary (society as a whole has done that just fine on its own). I also didn’t quite feel strongly enough that protagonist Salem had the skills (despite her degrees) to solve a code that’s been unbreakable for centuries. Add to that a similar disinclination to accept that the two women really did have the skills/strength to evade what seemed like nearly invincible killers who managed to do away with plenty of other people, and the story really didn’t work well for me. There are sequels, but I have no interest in reading further. I did, however, really enjoy Lourey’s magical-realism novel The Catalain Book of Secrets, a different genre altogether, so I wouldn’t rule out this author entirely.
Rated: High, for six uses of strong profanity, 25 instances of moderate language, and 25 instances of mild language, and two for the name of Deity taken in vain. Sexual content is limited to talk about characters being “a booty call” and brief references to a villain having been sold by his mother for sexual favors as a child. Violence is frequent and includes several twisted characters who enjoy hurting their victims; one character is tortured; there are a number of instances of a lot of blood spilled.
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