The Forgotten Room by Lincoln Child gives initial vibes that it’s heading toward the supernatural, perhaps with a ghostly presence that’s responsible for the gruesome suicide of a senior researcher at a stuffy think tank on the coastline of Newport, Rhode Island.
The main character Jeremy Logan was a prof at the Lux research institute years earlier until a self-important professor rallied opposition, citing Logan’s field of study, enigmatology was not up to the institute’s scientific/academic standards.
When one of the profs dies under mysterious and ugly circumstances, Logan is called upon to use his investigative abilities and discretion to learn what happened.
Logan conducts the usual winding course of interviews that turn up small bits of information and several dead ends. In the process, he learns the deceased, the level-headed Dr. Willard Strachey, had been in charge of a renovation project and after more probing discovers a forgotten room that the researcher had obviously discovered.
The room does not give up its secrets because someone else has been in it and taken pertinent materials and documents.
From here the plot shifts from supernatural forces to those of unknown black-hearted humans as the culprits as more deaths ensue.
The plodding pace in the first three-quarter of the book shifts into second and then third gear as the pieces come together with a finish that comes close to but is not quite an action thriller.
The end is the best part of the Forgotten Room both in terms of action and Logan’s inspired solution to defeat overwhelming forces.
I gave The Forgotten Room 3-1/2 stars because of its overly slow start but the ending and Logan’s character are worth a solid four stars.