The Maze by Nelson DeMille

Published by ‎ Scribner on October 11, 2022

Some John Corey novels are nonstop action. The Maze keeps the reader waiting for action to break out. It inevitably does, albeit in a pronged scene near the novel’s end. During the wait, Corey’s snark becomes the story.

Corey is on a three-quarter disability retirement. He can’t take a law enforcement job without losing his disability — not that he could return to law enforcement without crossing all the bridges that he’s burned. Corey is wasting time at his uncle’s Long Island vacation home, idly wondering whether he should become a mercenary while keeping an eye out for an SVR hit team (or anyone else who might want to kill him). While he waits, he’s offered a job with a couple of former NYPD colleagues in a private investigation firm.

Not so coincidentally, one of Corey’s former lovers, Beth Penrose, comes back into his life and bed. She encourages Corey to take the job. When he discovers that the firm hosts parties, complete with hookers, for local politicians and cops, Corey wonders whether Beth is setting him up as a spy. Without waiting to learn the truth, he decides to go undercover and gather evidence of political and police corruption.

The Maze has a lightweight plot. Since the gunplay comes late in the story, the reader is largely left with Corey’s unspoken thoughts. The thoughts are amusing but not a substantial foundation for a thriller. While the plot eventually makes a connection to the discovery of several dead bodies, the corpses add little but background to the story. The Maze left me with the feeling that Nelson DeMille phoned this one in based on an idea that he sketched out on a napkin. At least he didn’t hand it off to his son, as he did with the previous Corey novel. I'm getting the impression that DeMille, like many successful writers, has decided he can feed thin gruel to his base and they'll lap it up.

I recommend The Maze with reservations to John Corey fans because it’s a John Corey novel. To readers who haven’t followed the series, I suggest starting with earlier, meatier entries and working your way forward. If you don’t get around to this one, the world won’t end.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS