Monday, June 20, 2011

The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry

The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry

If you’re a fan of adventure/thrillers and you haven’t discovered Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone series you’re in for a treat.  Malone is former agent enjoying life as a rare book dealer in Copenhagen.  At least he tries to enjoy his non-agent life.  No one seems to want to let this guy just relax and run his shop.  Which is very fortunate for us readers.

In The Venetian Betrayal Malone is recruited to help find the most famous of missing tombs, the resting place of Alexander the Great, before the maniacal leader of the new Central Asian Federation does.  It was interesting having a warrior female leader as the villain in this book.  A nice twist.  Berry is great at combining ancient legends and history to come up with plausible stories.  It’s also neat to find out what’s fact and fiction when you get to the author’s notes at the end.

This is another series that you can jump into at any time.  This happens to be book three of seven; The Jefferson Key just came out.  (His standalones are fun too!)