The King's Deception

March 18, 2013
In bestseller Berry’s tepid eighth Cotton Malone thriller (after 2011’s The Jefferson Key), the ex–secret agent agrees to escort a juvenile thief in CIA custody, 15-year-old Ian Dunne, to England, as a favor to his former boss, Stephanie Nelle. Conveniently, Malone, who now runs a used-book store in Copenhagen, is planning to pick up his 15-year-old son, Gary, from his ex-wife in Atlanta for a European visit. Shortly after Malone and the two boys land at Heathrow, Ian and Gary are kidnapped. Malone begins a deadly chase that ricochets between 1547 and the present day and centers on a historical mystery involving Elizabeth I. All the elements of a Da Vinci Code adventure are in place: a traitorous CIA agent, ancient treasure, secret codes, and a mysterious, elderly head of the British Secret Intelligence Service; but unfortunately these components function more as teasers for the undeniably fascinating historical material, rather than as a launching pad for genuine thrills. 8- to 10-city author tour. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House.

March 15, 2013
Berry (The Columbus Affair, 2013, etc.) mixes Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and terrorists into Cotton Malone's eighth adventure. Malone is retired from the Magellan Billet, the U.S. Justice Department's supersecret unit. He now owns a Copenhagen bookstore. Malone's been summoned to Atlanta, his ex-wife's home, where she's shocked their son, Gary, with a buried secret: Malone isn't his biological father. Gary's angry. He wants to spend time in Copenhagen. Aware of his trip, Malone's former Magellan boss asks him to escort a runaway street kid to London. Ian Dunne witnessed a CIA agent's death. Berry's narrative catalyst was a real-life headline--Scotland's release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. The CIA isn't happy, and the British government won't act. The Malones and Dunne no sooner have their feet on the ground in London than they're kidnapped by agents working for Blake Antrim, of the Brussels-based CIA special operations counterterrorism team. Antrim is scheming to use a Tudor-era conspiracy involving Elizabeth I that reflects on the current monarchy's legitimacy to pressure the Brits to stop the release. Post-Malone kidnapping, there are escapes and evasions, all transpiring while Antrim's crew also opens Henry VIII's tomb in Windsor Castle's St. George's Chapel. Next, hard-charging Kathleen Richards of England's Serious Organized Crime Agency jumps into the whirlwind. Tudor-era rumors manipulating terrorist negotiations may seem realpolitik overkill, but it's ample ammunition for Berry's cinematic action to ricochet through castles, manor grounds and London's Underground while involving a professor assassinated but not dead, scholarly twin sisters and Sir Thomas Mathews, the British SIS's Machiavellian chief. Antrim's efforts are apparently stymied by the Daedalus Society, an ancient monarchy-preservation group, but then he succumbs to a bribe. Sir Thomas dissembles, manipulates and murders; Antrim's self-interest manifests; a secreted manuscript encoded by Robert Cecil, Elizabeth I's confidant and secretary of state, is deciphered; Bram Stoker's nonfiction work is cited, and Malone, the teenage boys and Richards survive more entrapments and gun battles than humanly possible. A Dan Brown-ian secular conspiracy about The Virgin Queen driving nonstop international intrigue.

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April 15, 2013

In Berry's eighth book (after The Columbus Affair) starring Cotton Malone, the aging former agent turned bookseller is pulled yet again into a conspiracy to rewrite history. Retirement from private security/international affairs and a Danish address aren't enough to keep Malone out of trouble when he agrees to transport a fugitive to England. Malone and his teenage son, Gary, become ensnared in a plot that links Malone's ex-wife's affair, Libyan terrorists, and Elizabeth I of Shakespeare's era. Gary teams up with Ian, a wily London street kid who unwittingly pickpocketed key evidence moments before a murder. Malone must identify his real enemies and solve the mystery to save his son and himself. VERDICT Berry's fans expect action interspersed with unbelievable shockers from the past and just enough historical fact to make the incredible plots seem possible. They won't be disappointed here as his hero continues to do battle with history and those who would kill to keep its secrets buried. [See Prepub Alert, 11/12/12.]--Catherine Lantz, Morton Coll. Lib., Cicero, IL

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2013
After an exciting departure from his Cotton Malone novels (The Columbus Affair, 2012), Berry returns to the series formula. When Malone's 15-year-old son is briefly kidnapped in London, the spy-turned-bookseller discovers he has inadvertently stumbled upon an international plot that involves secrets about Queen Elizabeth I and the impending release from prison of one of the men behind the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people. It takes awhile, but Berry does forge a thinly plausible connection between a modern-day terrorist act and the last Tudor ruler of Britain. Berry populates the novel with the usual assortment of charactersthe shifty intelligence agent, the stalwart investigatorand even offers us an ancient society that will stop at nothing to keep Elizabeth's shocking secrets from getting out. Fans of the series will no doubt enjoy this one, although it breaks no new ground, holding tightly to the series format. The galley circulated for review contains a troubling chronological inconsistencydepending on which internal evidence you listen to, the story is set either in 200506 or 2009but this could be cleared up when the book goes to print. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Berry's books, best-sellers all, have been translated into 40 languages with more than 15 million copies in print in 51 countries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

September 30, 2013
In Berry’s contemporary thriller, when series hero Cotton Malone goes to England with his teenage son, Gary, he gets entwined in a bizarre CIA operation involving a secret that dates back to the time of the Tudors. Along the way, Malone must deal with assassins, secret agents, and members of a fanatical cult, and his angry ex-wife. Narrator Scott Brick skillfully handles all this, handing in a performance that is controlled, well paced, and features slightly nasal narration that smoothly shifts between American and British accents. References to events in 16th-century England are interspersed with descriptions of modern-day spy work—and Brick delivers them all sedately, with an appropriately stiff upper lip. A Ballantine hardcover.