"Berry raises this genre's stakes."—The New York Times
"I love this guy."—Lee Child
“One of Berry's best books to date.”—Associated Press on The Patriot Threat
“My kind of thriller.” — Dan Brown on The Amber Room
“Steve Berry is a master at weaving together historical details with fiction to create a spellbinding thriller…The Patriot Threat is suspenseful, entertaining and thought provoking. As usual, Berry’s writing is smooth, the plot well thought out, and the characters realistic. Another winner from Steve Berry.”—Examiner.com
"As always with Steve Berry, you're educated about significant things while your knuckles are turning white and the pages are flying by."—David Baldacci
“Every American should read [The Lincoln Myth].”—Florida Times Union
“Steve Berry’s sizzling, scintillating and aptly titled The Patriot Threat…provides an extraordinarily well researched, prescient and beautifully structured tale that whisks us off across the globe and through history in search of an elusive truth dating to FDR. [Berry] remains a master of form and function, a stylist as well as a storyteller...Blistering reading entertainment at its level best.”—Providence Journal
“The 10th installment in Mr. Berry’s Cotton Malone series, The Patriot Threat is a fast-paced and entertaining traditional thriller along the lines of The Da Vinci Code. It’s loaded with action, character sketches, fascinating history and Mr. Berry’s liberal use of poetic license.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Another page-turning thriller blending history, speculation and face-paced action."—Kirkus Reviews on The Patriot Threat
Scott Brick is the perfect narrator for Cotton Malone’s adventures. Although he’s retired and running a bookstore in Scandinavia, ex-CIA agent Malone is called upon to help foil a Russian plot to destroy America. Brick’s gravelly voice and intense tone pull listeners into this thriller as Cotton Malone, Cassiopeia, and Stephanie race to identify Soviet sleepers and uncover the significance of the 14th colony, all before Inauguration Day in the U.S. The action ranges from Siberia to France, from Canada to Virginia, and involves the CIA, ex-KGB operatives, and the Society of the Cincinnati. Brick’s performance will delight Berry fans as they indulge in Malone’s eleventh espionage mission, replete with history and heart-pounding action. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
2016-01-21
Cotton Malone of the Magellan Billet, the Justice Department's elite intelligence group, once again yanks the U.S. back from the precipice of annihilation. Berry's (The Patriot Threat, 2015, etc.) modus operandi is always all-action, and here, his stalwart hero, Malone, a Top Gun pilot-turned-secret operative, has been dispatched to Siberia by Billet chief Stephanie Nelle on orders from lame-duck President Danny Daniels. Daniels is doing a favor for an unstable Russian government, which is worried about rumors of former KGB operatives with access to suitcase-sized nuclear weapons. Those bombs were hidden away when a hard-line Soviet premier needed a response to Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II's plan to destabilize the Soviet Union. Malone discovers that the weapons and the plan to use them are real. Daniels must respond in the last few hours of his administration. Magellan characters remain stock types, nuanced with hints of romance as Malone's estranged love, Cassiopea Vitt, returns and Nelle awaits the retiring president's divorce. The primary bad guy, one-time KGB superagent Aleksandr Zorin, is believable, a once-loyal apparatchik disillusioned by the kleptocrats' hold on Russia. There's a trail of shootouts, bombs, fires, and hand-to-hand combat from Siberia's exotic Lake Baikal to Prince Edward Island, refuge of a sleeper agent, to Washington, D.C's corridors of power. The plot is familiar—good guys chase bad guys to avert major crises—but Berry this time complicates the scenario with a second storyline. It involves The Society of Cincinnati, a fraternity founded after the Revolutionary War by and for the male descendants of veterans. How that organization's longtime desire for a 14th colony ties into Russian resentment is left for Malone and his Magellen cohorts to dig up. Longer than it needs to be but Berry gunfights his way entertainingly enough to the save-the-world conclusion of this formulaic yarn.
