The Venetian Betrayal: A Novel (Cotton Malone) | Steve Berry

The Venetian Betrayal: A Novel (Cotton Malone) | Steve Berry | Once again Berry is excellent

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The Venetian Betra...

	The Venetian Betrayal: A Novel (Cotton Malone) Steve Berry Ballantine Books, 2007 - 496 pages average customer review:based on 51 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

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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Great Reading

This book was absolutely fantastic reading. This is the first time I read any of his books and it held my attention from beginning to end and it took me only three days to read and absorb it and this being during the olympics on TV also. Like I said it was a great book and I have a few others of his and I am going to start reading them now. I am awaiting to others that I have preordered.

Once again Berry is excellent

I am a fan of Berry so I am a little biased but I thought this book was right in line with the others with Cotton Malone as the central character. An enjoyable read for sure. I enjoy the way Berry continues to build his characters. This one is involves a fun look at history with a nice blend of conspiracy, action, and mystery!

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Entertaining but unbelievable in spots...

Steve Berry has a knack for taking a piece of history and weaving a fictional story around that history. Berry has used this formula to good effect in everything he has written, including the latest--The Venetian Betrayal. My husband and I listened to the unabridged CDs on a very long road trip, and it kept us entertained for 14 long hours, and then some. But comparing The Venetian Betrayal to his other works, it's not quite a strong.

The piece of history in The Venetian Betrayal is the search for the remains of Alexander the Great. Irina Zovastina is the supreme minister of the fictional Central Asian Federation (a group of former Soviet states). She has an obsession with Alexander the Great and she plans to conquer the same regions that her hero conquered centuries ago. One of the reasons she wants to find Alexander's remains is that she also believes they will lead her to a draft that will cure HIV/AIDS (a definite stretch). At first, it is rumored that the remains of Alexander are actually buried in St. Mark's crypt in Venice--thus the book's name. But Zovastina and her henchmen will leave no stone unturned in their quest for Alexander and in the supreme minister's master plan for world dominance.

In The Venetian Betrayal, Berry brings back the characters from The Alexander Link and The Templar Legacy. They include Copenhagen-bookseller and former US operative, Cotton Malone, Cassiopeia Vitt, Henrik Thorvaldsen, and Justice Department boss Stephanie Nell. They all bring their unique talents to The Venetian Betrayal as they try to stop the evil and diabolical Zovastina. They certainly provide action at break-neck speed.

As with all thrillers, The Venetian Betrayal was unbelievable in spots. But I love the historical aspects of all of Berry's works (in this case, Alexander the Great). Also, I enjoy any story that makes a long car trip seem much quicker. In this respect, The Venetian Betrayal proved to be good entertainment.

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A Pleasant Read

I enjoyed reading this book. I would not say it is as good as "The Amber Room" or "The Romanov Prophecy", however, it is a good story. Cotton Malone is once again the good guy protaganist. It dragged a little bit in parts and was not as gripping as some of his other novels. There is a fun reference to a James Rollin's character. The next time I hear of a "turtle", I will think of this book.
I would recommend you read it if you like his other stories.

Not Berry's Best but Still Good

I've read each of Steve Berry's novels, and while this isn't the best one he's done, it's still very good. As with his other books, the main character is Cotton Malone, a former US Government agent turned bookseller.

This time Malone and Berry's other cast of characters from his previous novels are responsible for trying to help stop a dictator from a fictitious central Asian nation from unleashing a global pandemic. As usual with Berry's books, this book tackles a historical mystery, this time the death and disappearance of the body of Alexander the Great. Berry weaves the death of Alexander from an unknown source into a broader story about AIDS and the search for a cure. There are some very interesting historical facts in this book about Alexander, and Berry only takes liberties where he has to. I came away wanting to read more about the real Alexander the Great, his death and the disappearance of his remains at roughly the same time as the remains of St. Mark reappeared.

I enjoyed this book just as much as the others up until the last couple of chapters. Berry seemed to have difficulty bringing the book to a conclusion and in my opinion drew it out much, much too long. The last couple of chapters I kept asking myself "Why are they doing that? It's just prolonging the book!"

This book isn't great literature by any means. But in my opinion, a book should either entertain or inform, and this one does a bit of both. The characters are believable and so is most of the story. It's an easy read that I would recommend for an airplane or car trip where you just want to sit back and be entertained.

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