His lat­est cre­ation con­jures the age old mur­der of Abel by his broth­er Cain as told in the Bible. While this is con­sid­ered by many to be the world’s most famous mur­der, the Bible is silent as to the weapon Cain used to kill his broth­er. Meltzer clev­er­ly recalls that crime in The Book of Lies, inter­twin­ing it with the 1932 mur­der of Mitchell Siegel (the father of Super­man cre­ator Jer­ry Siegel), and the fic­tion­al shoot­ing of Lloyd Harp­er, the father of the book’s main char­ac­ter, Cal. The same gun was used in both the Siegel mur­der and the Harp­er shooting. 

That said, the real quest in The Book of Lies is to unrav­el the mys­tery of the weapon used to kill Abel, and Cal and Lloyd work at break­neck speed to solve the secret. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, Lloyd is none too coop­er­a­tive with his son, whom he aban­doned years before.

Also seek­ing to solve the mys­tery is Ellis Belas­co, a cru­el vil­lain whose past is linked with Cal’s. 

One note about this book: Keep a pen and paper handy while read­ing. Meltzer intro­duces so many char­ac­ters it can be chal­leng­ing to keep them straight. Oth­er than that, the sur­pris­ing plot twists inter­twined with bits of true his­to­ry (a Meltzer trade­mark) make for a com­pelling read.