Product Description

Ex-agent Cotton Malone wants to know what really happened to his father, officially lost at sea when his submarine went down in the north Atlantic in 1971. But when he uses his government contacts to obtain the submarine’s sealed file, he finds he is not the only person looking for answers.

Malone is in the line of fire when he is attacked in an attempt to take the file. He is pitched into a lethal power struggle between Dorothea Lindauer and Christl Falk, twin sisters whose twisted ambition takes sibling rivalry to new levels.

Malone and the twins embark on a dangerous adventure involving Nazi explorations in Antarctica, US government conspiracies, and a series of cryptic historical clues built into the legend of Charlemagne. Forced to choose a side when neither can win, Malone is determined to uncover the truth behind his father's death – but will he be able to escape his own? (20080504)

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32188 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Review
'Action-packed, fast paced and engaging' (Sunday Express on THE VENETIAN BETRAYAL )

'Pure intrigue. Pure fun.'

(Clive Cussler on Steve Berry )

'Sexy, illuminating...my kind of thriller' (Dan Brown on THE AMBER ROOM )

'International intrigue, swashbuckling action, indestructible hero from the American South...Not to be missed.' (Kirkus Reviews, on THE ROMANOV PROPHECY )

'Complex and fast-moving thriller writing, delivered with a great deal of dash, and shades of The Da Vinci Code'

(Good Book Guide on THE TEMPLAR LEGACY )

'A meticulous researcher, Berry carefully integrates such elements as Charlemagne, Nazis, ancient manuscripts, historical puzzles and scientific surprises into the plot. Those who relish suspense in the Da Vinci Code vein will snap this one up, the best yet in the series.' (Publishers Weekly, starred review )

About the Author
Steve Berry has travelled extensively throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, Europe, and Russia and has published six previous international thrillers. His most recent four books have all been New York Times and international bestsellers, and his books have been published in 42 countries and translated into 38 languages. Visit his website at www.steveberry.org. (20080504)

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Customer Reviews

I read it non-stop : again an action packed thriller of first order by Steve Berry
I bought this book on a business trip to Munich (coming from Boston)and was quite surprised that much is set in Bavaria and partly in Munich. As jetleg kept me awake I started to read it and did not stop before I had finished the last pages. Steve Berry continues a bit the theme he developed in his "The Amber Room", but it is far from a mere copy.

I got hooked with page one and could not let go. No. 7 in the Cotton Malone mysteries - as in the previous six novels - Steve Berry offers the reader a fast moving plot linking present and past. It is action packed and another thriller of first order.Political intrigues of the present find their link with the past and its mysteries. Cotton Malone develops from book and book and gets rounded, more human. This applies to all his characters. I found them much more rounder and complex than in his previous books. But Steve Berry writes in such a way that one does not need to have read the first six novels in order to understand these characters. This novel is sequence but stands as well alone and makes perfect sense.


The chapters are short and easy to read and one simply wants to know what happens next The style is just fanastic and a pleasure to read.

If you enjoy thrillers this is one you do not want to miss. Steven Berry has proven himself - once more - as a superb story teller.

The Charlemagne Pursuit
The Charlemagne Pursuit is the least successful of Steve Berry's Cotton Malone thrillers. The plots in the book are quite separate and I found them difficult to believe in. In one plot a Bavarian family is looking for an US submarine (commanded by Malone's father) with their own father on board which went missing during an Antarctic expedition in the early seventies. The other plot involves a US admiral who is trying to achieve an important position through various nefarious deeds and who also went on the Antarctic expedition and brought back evidence of an early civilization. The two plots occasionally overlap but neither is really believable and the ending made little sense to me. It is very well written (as are all Berry's books) but he favours fragmentation of action where two or three situations are being discussed together and he switches from one to another at exciting moments. I personally think this is carried to extremes and you lose track of the plots as well as having to keep going back to see what was happening.
An interesting thriller but not nearly as satisfying as The Venetian Betrayal.

Dependable Cotton Malone Romp
Another historical fiction Cotton Malone adventure, this time based around the 8'th Century European Emperor Carolus, better known as Charlemagne. Malone attempts to track down the mystery of how his father died in a lost submarine in Antartica and this ties in with the wartime Nazi's looking for secrets under the ice. Their modern day ancestors are twin sisters who play Malone well to get them to help uncover their Bavarian family heirlooms. At the same time in Washington we have dangerous Admiral trying to get elected as Chief of staff, through any means. All in all, another good novel from Berry with some interesting fictional theories around a prior intelligent civilization. I think the plot was dependable but the characters not as strong as previous Malone adventure's. The evil sisters, in particular, not quite evil enough. Recommended.