The Venetian Betrayal (Cotton Malone Series #3)

( 178 )

Overview

In 323 B.C.E, having conquered Persia, Alexander the Great set his sights on Arabia, then suddenly succumbed to a strange fever. Locating his final resting place–unknown to this day–remains a tantalizing goal for both archaeologists and treasure hunters. Now the quest for this coveted prize is about to heat up. And Cotton Malone–former U.S. Justice Department agent turned rare-book dealer–will be drawn into an intense geopolitical chess game.

After narrowly escaping incineration...

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The Venetian Betrayal (Cotton Malone Series #3)

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More About This Book

Overview

In 323 B.C.E, having conquered Persia, Alexander the Great set his sights on Arabia, then suddenly succumbed to a strange fever. Locating his final resting place–unknown to this day–remains a tantalizing goal for both archaeologists and treasure hunters. Now the quest for this coveted prize is about to heat up. And Cotton Malone–former U.S. Justice Department agent turned rare-book dealer–will be drawn into an intense geopolitical chess game.

After narrowly escaping incineration in a devastating fire that consumes a Danish museum, Cotton learns from his friend, the beguiling adventurer Cassiopeia Vitt, that the blaze was neither an accident nor an isolated incident. As part of campaign of arson intended to mask a far more diabolical design, buildings across Europe are being devoured by infernos of unnatural strength.

And from the ashes of the U.S.S.R., a new nation has arisen: Former Soviet republics have consolidated into the Central Asian Federation. At its helm is Supreme Minister Irina Zovastina, a cunning despot with a talent for politics, a taste for blood sport, and the single-minded desire to surpass Alexander the Great as history’s ultimate conqueror.
Backed by a secret cabal of powerbrokers, the Federation has amassed a harrowing arsenal of biological weapons. Equipped with the hellish power to decimate other nations at will, only one thing keeps Zovastina from setting in motion her death march of domination: a miraculous healing serum, kept secret by an ancient puzzle and buried with the mummified remains of Alexander the Great–in a tomb lost to the ages for more than 1,500 years.

Together, Cotton and Cassiopeia must outrun and outthink the forces allied against them. Their perilous quest will take them to the shores of Denmark, deep into the venerated monuments of Venice, and finally high inside the desolate Pamir mountains of Central Asia to unravel a riddle whose solution could destroy or save millions of people–depending on who finds the lost tomb first.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Scott Brick continues to bolster his status as one of the best narrators of international thrillers with his excellent reading of Berry's latest. Once again, Cotton Malone, a retired intelligence officer turned rare book dealer, is thrown into the middle of a diabolical plot for world domination. Irina Zovastina, the Supreme Minister of a powerful collective of old Soviet republics, has an insidious plan to use biological weapons, at the cost of millions of lives, in a maniacal attempt to conquer the world. For her stratagem to succeed, she must unearth a secret hidden within the final resting place of Alexander the Great, a burial site whose location has been shrouded in mystery for millennia years. Brick easily negotiates his way through this complex plot, his confident delivery keeps the suspense high while bringing a solid reality to a story that often walks a fine line between the believable and the improbable. Simultaneous release with the Ballantine hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 8). (Dec.)

Copyright 2007Reed Business Information
Library Journal

This is Berry's third work featuring rare book dealer Cotton Malone, a former Justice Department superagent, and sidekick Cassiopeia Vitt. The pair attempt to defeat the leader of a refurbished Soviet Union who is about to set loose a toxic viral agent whose only antidote lies buried with Alexander the Great. Although narrator Scott Brick provides subtle accents and interprets the action convincingly, his performance is unable to make this audiobook into an enjoyable listening experience. The plot is contrived, the characters are familiar, and the story is disappointing. Still, Berry has many fans, and his book (released in hardcover in December 2007) is a New York Times best seller, so librarians have a tough call on this one. Recommended with reservations. [Other best sellers in the series include The Alexandria Link and The Templar Legacy; The Venetian Betrayal is also available as downloadable audio from Audible.com.-Ed.]
—Ray Vignovich

Kirkus Reviews
The intercontinental adventures of extraordinarily resourceful bookseller Cotton Malone continue as he is sucked into the geopolitical maneuvers of an ambitious Central Asian woman who fancies herself the successor to Alexander the Great. There is no rest for weary former American intelligence agent Cotton Malone, whose bookselling retirement in Copenhagen is continually interrupted by intriguing but exhausting adventures into which he is thrown by his kindly aged Danish billionaire chum Henrik Thorvaldsen. Berry (The Alexandria Link, 2007, etc.) is keen on ancient mysteries. This time he has dreamed up a medical twist-the possible existence of a panacea which, had it been administered in time, might have saved the young lives of Alexander the Great and his boyfriend. A cabal of evil free-marketers styling themselves after the old Venetian merchants is hot on the trail of the elixir and its source, located somewhere in the realm of hard-riding Kazakh ruler Irina Zovastina. Zovastina, a would-be biological warrior, has knit together a near-empire out of the old Soviet Union, and now she wants more than anything to find the long-lost body of her personal hero, Alexander the Great. In uneasy alliance with the Venetian League, Zovastina is on the hunt for all of the remaining medals Alexander used to pass out as souvenirs, a hunt that involves the destruction of museums and mansions. Malone is involved because his and Thorvaldsen's friend, the lethal archer Cassiopeia Vitt, used to have a boyfriend who knew all about Alexander, elixirs and Greek Fire-his house has since burned down, with him in it. Because the elixir could be the cure for AIDS, and goodness knows what else, everyone winds upchasing each other through the mountains of central Asia. Cardboard characters and over-the-top plotting in some fairly spectacular scenery.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780345485786
  • Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 11/18/2008
  • Series: Cotton Malone Series , #3
  • Format: Mass Market Paperback
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 576
  • Sales rank: 97,020
  • Product dimensions: 7.50 (w) x 4.20 (h) x 1.35 (d)

Meet the Author

Steve Berry

Steve Berry is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of The King’s Deception, The Columbus Affair, The Jefferson Key, The Emperor’s Tomb, The Paris Vendetta, The Charlemagne Pursuit, The Venetian Betrayal, The Alexandria Link, The Templar Legacy, The Third Secret, The Romanov Prophecy, and The Amber Room. His books have been translated into 40 languages with more than 15,000,000 printed copies in 51 countries.
 
History lies at the heart of every Steve Berry novel. It’s this passion, one he shares with his wife, Elizabeth, that led them to create History Matters, a foundation dedicated to historic preservation. Since 2009 Steve and Elizabeth have traveled across the country to save endangered historic treasures, raising money via lectures, receptions, galas, luncheons, dinners, and their popular writers’ workshops. To date, nearly 2,000 students have attended those workshops. In 2012 their work was recognized by the American Library Association, which named Steve the first spokesman for National Preservation Week. He was also appointed by the Smithsonian Board of Regents to serve on the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board to help promote and support the libraries in their mission to provide information in all forms to scientists, curators, scholars, students and the public at large. He was named Georgia Author of the Year (2005) and has received the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award and the 2013 Writers for Writers Award bestowed by Poets & Writers.
 
Steve Berry was born and raised in Georgia, graduating from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University. He was a trial lawyer for 30 years and held elective office for 14 of those years. He is a founding member of International Thriller Writers—a group of more than 2,000 thriller writers from around the world—and served three years as its co-president.
 
For more information, visit www.steveberry.org.

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Read an Excerpt

Copenhagen, Denmark Saturday, April 18 , The Present
11:55 p.m.

The smell roused Cotton Malone to consciousness. Sharp, acrid, with a hint of sulfur. And something else. Sweet and sickening.

Like death.

He opened his eyes.

He lay prone on the floor, arms extended, palms to the hardwood, which he immediately noticed was sticky.

What happened?

He’d attended the April gathering of the Danish Antiquarian Booksellers Society a few blocks west of his bookshop, near the gaiety of Tivoli. He liked the monthly meetings and this one had been no exception. A few drinks, some friends, and lots of book chatter. Tomorrow morning he’d agreed to meet Cassiopeia Vitt. Her call yesterday to arrange the meeting had surprised him. He’d not heard from her since Christmas, when she’d spent a few days in Copenhagen. He’d been cruising back home on his bicycle, enjoying the comfortable spring night, when he’d decided to check out the unusual meeting location she’d chosen, the Museum of Greco-Roman Culture–a preparatory habit from his former profession. Cassiopeia rarely did anything on impulse, so a little advance preparation wasn’t a bad idea.

He’d found the address, which faced the Frederiksholms canal, and noticed a half-open door to the pitch-dark building–a door that should normally be closed and alarmed. He’d parked his bike. The least he could do was close the door and phone the police when he returned home.

But the last thing he remembered was grasping the doorknob.

He was now inside the museum.

In the ambient light that filtered in through two plate-glass windows, he saw a space decorated in typical Danish style–a sleek mixture of steel, wood, glass, and aluminum. The right side of his head throbbed and he caressed a tender knot.

He shook the fog from his brain and stood.

He’d visited this museum once and had been unimpressed with its collection of Greek and Roman artifacts. Just one of a hundred or more private collections throughout Copenhagen, their subject matter as varied as the city’s population.

He steadied himself against a glass display case. His fingertips again came away sticky and smelly, with the same nauseating odor.

He noticed that his shirt and trousers were damp, as was his hair, face, and arms. Whatever covered the museum’s interior coated him, too.

He stumbled toward the front entrance and tried the door. Locked. Double dead bolt. A key would be needed to open it from the inside.

He stared back into the interior. The ceiling soared thirty feet. A wood-and-chrome staircase led up to a second floor that dissolved into more darkness, the ground floor extending out beneath.

He found a light switch. Nothing. He lumbered over to a desk phone. No dial tone.

A noise disturbed the silence. Clicks and whines, like gears working. Coming from the second floor.
His training as a Justice Department agent cautioned him to keep quiet, but also urged him to investigate.

So he silently climbed the stairs.

The chrome banister was damp, as were each of the laminated risers. Fifteen steps up, more glass-and-chrome display cases dotted the hardwood floor. Marble reliefs and partial bronzes on pedestals loomed like ghosts. Movement caught his eye twenty feet away. An object rolling across the floor. Maybe two feet wide with rounded sides, pale in color, tight to the ground, like one of those robotic lawn mowers he’d once seen advertised. When a display case or statue was encountered, the thing stopped, retreated, then darted in a different direction. A nozzle extended from its top and every few seconds a burst of aerosol spewed out.

He stepped close.

All movement stopped. As if it sensed his presence. The nozzle swung to face him. A cloud of mist soaked his pants.

What was this?

The machine seemed to lose interest and scooted deeper into the darkness, more odorous mist expelling along the way. He stared down over the railing to the ground floor and spotted another of the contraptions parked beside a display case.

Nothing about this seemed good.

He needed to leave. The stench was beginning to turn his stomach.

The machine ceased its roaming and he heard a new sound.

Two years ago, before his divorce, his retirement from the government, and his abrupt move to Copenhagen, when he’d lived in Atlanta, he’d spent a few hundred dollars on a stainless-steel grill. The unit came with a red button that, when pumped, sparked a gas flame. He recalled the sound the igniter made with each pump of the button.

The same clicking he heard right now.

Sparks flashed.

The floor burst to life, first sun yellow, then burnt orange, finally settling on pale blue as flames radiated outward, consuming the hardwood. Flames simultaneously roared up the walls. The temperature rose swiftly and he raised an arm to shield his face. The ceiling joined the conflagration, and in less than fifteen seconds the second floor was totally ablaze.

Overhead sprinklers sprang to life.

He partially retreated down the staircase and waited for the fire to be doused.

But he noticed something.

The water simply aggravated the flames.

The machine that started the disaster suddenly disintegrated in a muted flash, flames rolling out in all directions, like waves searching for shore.

A fireball drifted to the ceiling and seemed to be welcomed by the spraying water. Steam thickened the air, not with smoke but with a chemical that made his head spin.

He leaped down the stairs two at a time. Another swoosh racked the second floor. Followed by two more. Glass shattered. Something crashed.

He darted to the front of the building.

The other gizmo that had sat dormant sprang to life and started skirting the ground-floor display cases.
More aerosol spewed into the scorching air.

He needed to get out. But the locked front door opened to the inside. Metal frame, thick wood. No way to kick it open. He watched as fire eased down the staircase, consuming each riser, like the devil descending to greet him. Even the chrome was being devoured with a vengeance.

His breaths became labored, thanks to the chemical fog and the rapidly vanishing oxygen. Surely someone would call the fire department, but they’d be no help to him. If a spark touched his soaked clothes . . .

The blaze found the bottom of the staircase.

Ten feet away.

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 178 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(71)

4 Star

(74)

3 Star

(19)

2 Star

(6)

1 Star

(8)

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 179 Customer Reviews

  • Posted December 25, 2010

    more from this reviewer

    I Also Recommend:

    Angels and Demons
    Patriot Games
    The Pelican Brief

    Once again Malone gets pulled into some secret goverment plots

    Lots of twists and turns, great history of Alexandra the Great, a corrorupt goverening facility, and lots of action. Again, this was one I listened to and think you would get more out of reading it. There were times I got a little lost in the history and confused on people, but over not a bad story.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 15, 2008

    love his books

    I've read all of his books so far. Really enjoyed every single one of them. Anyone who likes a little bit of history mixed into the story lines will love these.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 15, 2007

    Great to see an author that cares about the reader!

    It is so great to see an author that really cares about the reader and about the story. There are too many authors who are writing and whipping out books just for the profit. This is a great book, a great addition to the previous, yet a stand alone. Characters with depth, and a story line that weaves fact and fiction. Well done.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted August 4, 2012

    The best

    As always-suspense and intrigue!

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  • Posted July 12, 2012

    The devil is in the details--and this man knows how to write them..

    Love Steve Berry books..intriguing and I always walk away with a different perspective on what I thought I knew.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 3, 2012

    Highly recommended

    There are some missing pages!

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  • Posted December 21, 2011

    A good read as good as the other Cotton Malone Series

    A good series read, Almost as good as the Clive Cussler books,

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 11, 2011

    James rollins character painter crowe

    His character Painter Crowe is mentioned in the book, and it excites me knowing these two authors obviously know each other. They are both really good, and ive read all of Rollins books, so its fitting that i should read those of a friend of his.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted September 27, 2011

    Another great Steve Berry page-turner!!

    In typical Berry style, thrilling twists, engaging characters and panoramic vista descriptions all wrapped up in an all-too-believable plot. And who doesn't love Cotton Malone?? Loved this entry that I could hardly put down! Would so enjoy this series on the big screen...

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  • Posted September 14, 2011

    Another great story!

    This is the first 'series' I have delved into beginning with Cotton Malone #1 and it just keeps getting better. Steve Berry spins a great tale and I find it difficult to put it down. A must read for adventure fans!

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  • Posted March 22, 2011

    Sliding toward comic book status?

    I previously read 4 of Steve Berry's books, inlcuding the first two Cotton Malone novels. Greatly enjoyed the historical threads/conspiracy plots. However, each book seems to be becoming more and more farcical, with the body count rising higher than those in the old 1960s Sgt Rock comic books. It's hard enough sometimes to maintain credibility with any kind of historical conspiracy, but when you have people killing people as often as one swats a fly, the whole premise rapidly collapses into absurdity. I think Steve Berry can do better.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 9, 2010

    If you loved Dan Brown, you will love Steve Berry

    Loved it!

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  • Posted May 22, 2010

    more from this reviewer

    I Also Recommend:

    The Romanov Prophecy
    The Templar Legacy (Cotton Malone Series #1)

    SPY THRILLER

    This book is basically a spy thriller. Most of the characters are rather shallow. It is not on the level of some of Steve Berry's earlier books (particularly "The Romanov Prophecy" and "The Templar Legacy"). Nevertheless, the geopolitics is plausible. The history of this area, both ancient and while under the heel of the Soviets, is interesting. Historical aspects of Alexander the Great, both real and imagined, are also interesting to include speculation on the disappearance of Alexander's mummified body.

    The setting is the Central Asian Confederation consisting of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The plot revolves about the intent of the tough, nationalistic, megalomaniac, Irina Zovastina, Supreme Minister of the Central Asian Confederation, to inflict biological warfare on nearby countries (Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) to create or restore a kingdom reminiscent of that of Alexander the Great. The characterization of Zovastina as an amoral monster on the one hand and a nationalist deeply sympathetic toward and proud of her people on the other hand gives this character some depth. Cotton Malone, the former State Department operative, must stop Zovastina and save a big chunk of the world, rescue an agent with whom he would like to have a romantic interest, and find the biological antigen (first discovered by Alexander the Great) by following clues left by Ptolemy. I'm a fan of Steve Berry. This isn't his best work but the geopolitics and ancient historical context made the read interesting and enjoyable.

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  • Posted May 1, 2010

    I LOVE HIS BOOKS

    This book was as good as the other books that Steve Berry has written. The plot was interesting especially about the diseases.

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  • Posted March 31, 2010

    more from this reviewer

    I Also Recommend:

    The Templar Legacy (Cotton Malone Series #1)
    The Alexandria Link (Cotton Malone Series #2)

    If only there was a cure!

    Pretty good read and the fact that it addresses a cure to a disease that plagues our society makes it even more interesting! This is my 3rd Berry book and he tends to get LONG WINDED but overall the stories are good. The main character is no Robert Langdon but not a dweeb either!

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  • Posted February 20, 2010

    great read

    as with most of his books interesting , fast reading and characters who you can identify with. Have read all of Cotton Malone series and enjoyed each one.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 22, 2009

    Quick pace.

    Chapters short. Quick pace. Didn't want to put the book down. Kept my interest. Will be checking out his other works. Recommended for those that need to escape from life's responsibilities for a few hours.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 1, 2009

    Just couldn't get through it

    I'm an avid reader. In all my years there have been only two books I simply couldn't finish; this was one of them. This read more like an encyclopedic recitation of questionable facts with a few poorly developed, unlikeable characters thrown in to add murder and excitement. It failed on excitement, on plot and on character development. Save yourself - avoid this book.

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  • Posted March 11, 2009

    Berry Scores Again

    In the relatively short time I have been reading Steve Berry's books, he has become one of my top five favorite authors. I enjoy the historical research and information included in them. I find them entertaining and difficult to set aside for other tasks.

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  • Posted March 9, 2009

    Enjoyed the story and historical items, even if they aren't all true, which I don't know for sure.

    Good read for historical type fiction.

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 179 Customer Reviews
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