A text-only version of the bestselling book.
TV Cream Toys celebrates the presents that we hoped, wished and prayed would turn up in the Christmas stockings of yesteryear. From Big Trak to Buckaroo!, Mastermind to Merlin, Sorry! to Strawberry Shortcake, each peerless plaything from the '60s through to the '90s is examined and catalogued (in the Argos, rather than the scientific, sense).
Culled from award-winning retro website TV Cream, this book lists a wealth of fondly remembered toys, games, and novelties, and unearths quite a few of the oft-forgotten classics that, even to this day, remain treasured in the hearts of our inner children.
LET THE BLIZZARD OF MR MEN WRAPPING PAPER COMMENCE...
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steve Berry’s The Columbus Affair.
Ekaterinburg, Russia: July 16, 1918. Ten months have passed since Nicholas II’s reign was cut short by revolutionaries. Tonight, the White Army advances on the town where the Tsar and his family are being held captive by the Bolsheviks. Nicholas dares to hope for salvation. Instead, the Romanovs are coldly and methodically executed.
Moscow: Present Day. Atlanta lawyer Miles Lord, fluent in Russian and well versed in the country’s history, is thrilled to be in Moscow on the eve of such a momentous event. After the fall of Communism and a succession of weak governments, the Russian people have voted to bring back the monarchy. The new tsar will be chosen from the distant relatives of Nicholas II by a specially appointed commission, and Miles’ job is to perform a background check on the Tsarist candidate favored by a powerful group of Western businessmen. But research quickly becomes the least of Miles’ concerns when he is nearly killed by gunmen on a city plaza.
Suddenly Miles is racing across continents, shadowed by nefarious henchmen. At first, his only question is why people are pursuing him. But after a strange conversation with a mysterious Russian, who steers Miles toward the writings of Rasputin, he becomes desperate to know more–most important, what really happened to the family of Russia’s last tsar?
His only companion is Akilina Petrov, a Russian circus performer sympathetic to his struggle, and his only guide is a cryptic message from Rasputin that implies that the bloody night of so long ago is not the last chapter in the Romanovs’ story . . . and that someone might even have survived the massacre. The prophecy’s implications are earth-shattering–not only for the future of the tsar and mother Russia, but also for Miles himself.
Steve Berry, national bestselling author of the phenomenal thriller The Amber Room, once again delves into rich historical fact to produce an explosive page-turner. In The Romanov Prophecy, the authentic and the speculative meld into a fascinating and exceptionally suspenseful work of fiction.
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steve Berry’s The King's Deception and a Cotton Malone dossier.
The ancient order of the Knights Templar possessed untold wealth and absolute power over kings and popes . . . until the Inquisition, when they were wiped from the face of the earth, their hidden riches lost. But now two forces vying for the treasure have learned that it is not at all what they thought it was–and its true nature could change the modern world.
Cotton Malone, one-time top operative for the U.S. Justice Department, is enjoying his quiet new life as an antiquarian book dealer in Copenhagen when an unexpected call to action reawakens his hair-trigger instincts–and plunges him back into the cloak-and-dagger world he thought he’d left behind.
It begins with a violent robbery attempt on Cotton’s former supervisor, Stephanie Nelle, who’ s far from home on a mission that has nothing to do with national security. Armed with vital clues to a series of centuries-old puzzles scattered across Europe, she means to crack a mystery that has tantalized scholars and fortune-hunters through the ages by finding the legendary cache of wealth and forbidden knowledge thought to have been lost forever when the order of the Knights Templar was exterminated in the fourteenth century. But she’s not alone. Competing for the historic prize– and desperate for the crucial information Stephanie possesses–is Raymond de Roquefort, a shadowy zealot with an army of assassins at his command.
Welcome or not, Cotton seeks to even the odds in the perilous race. But the more he learns about the ancient conspiracy surrounding the Knights Templar, the more he realizes that even more than lives are at stake. At the end of a lethal game of conquest, rife with intrigue, treachery, and craven lust for power, lies a shattering discovery that could rock the civilized world–and, in the wrong hands, bring it to its knees.
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steve Berry’s The Columbus Affair and a Cotton Malone dossier.
Cotton Malone retired from the high-risk world of elite operatives for the U.S. Justice Department to lead the low-key life of a rare-book dealer. But his quiet existence is shattered when he receives an anonymous e-mail: “You have something I want. You’ re the only person on earth who knows where to find it. Go get it. You have 72 hours. If I don’t hear from you, you will be childless.” His horrified ex-wife confirms that the threat is real: Their teenage son has been kidnapped. When Malone’s Copenhagen bookshop is burned to the ground, it becomes brutally clear that those responsible will stop at nothing to get what they want. And what they want is nothing less than the lost Library of Alexandria.
A cradle of ideas–historical, philosophical, literary, scientific, and religious–the Library of Alexandria was unparalleled in the world. But fifteen hundred years ago, it vanished into the mists of myth and legend–its vast bounty of wisdom coveted ever since by scholars, fortune hunters, and those who believe its untold secrets hold the key to ultimate power.
Now a cartel of wealthy international moguls, bent on altering the course of history, is desperate to breach the library’s hallowed halls–and only Malone possesses the information they need to succeed. At stake is an explosive ancient document with the potential not only to change the destiny of the Middle East but to shake the world’s three major religions to their very foundations.
Pursued by a lethal mercenary, Malone crosses the globe in search of answers. His quest will lead him to England and Portugal, even to the highest levels of American government–and the shattering outcome, deep in the Sinai desert, will have worldwide repercussions.
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steve Berry’s The Columbus Affair and a Cotton Malone dossier.
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.
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steve Berry’s The Columbus Affair and a Cotton Malone dossier.
When Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile in 1821, he took to the grave a powerful secret. As general and emperor, he had stolen immeasurable riches from palaces, national treasuries, and even the Knights of Malta and the Vatican. In his final days, his British captors hoped to learn where the loot lay hidden. But he told them nothing, and in his will he made no mention of the treasure. Or did he?
Former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone isn't looking for trouble when it comes knocking at his Copenhagen bookshop. Actually, it breaks and enters in the form of an American Secret Service agent with a pair of assassins on his heels. Malone has his doubts about the anxious young man, but narrowly surviving a ferocious firefight convinces him to follow his unexpected new ally.
Their first stop is the secluded estate of Malone's good friend, Henrik Thorvaldsen. The wily Danish tycoon has uncovered the insidious plans of the Paris Club, a cabal of multimillionaires bent on manipulating the global economy. Only by matching wits with a terrorist-for-hire, foiling a catastrophic attack, and plunging into a desperate hunt for Napoleon's legendary lost treasure can Malone hope to avert international financial anarchy.
But Thorvaldsen's real objective is much more personal: to avenge the murder of his son by the larcenous aristocrat at the heart of the conspiracy. Thorvaldsen's vendetta places Malone in an impossible quandary--one that forces him to choose between friend and country, past and present. Starting in Denmark, moving to England, and ending up in the storied streets and cathedrals of Paris, Malone plays a breathless game of duplicity and death, all to claim a prize of untold value. But at what cost?
BONUS: This edition contains a Cotton Malone Dossier, an excerpt from Steve Berry's The Columbus Affair, and a short story by Steve Berry, The Balkan Escape.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone has received an anonymous note carrying an unfamiliar Web address. Logging on, he’s shocked to see Cassiopeia Vitt, a woman who’s saved his life more than once, being tortured at the hands of a mysterious man who has a single demand: Bring me the artifact she’s asked you to keep safe. The only problem is, Malone doesn’t have a clue what the man is talking about, since Cassiopeia has left nothing with him. So begins Malone’s most harrowing adventure to date--one that offers up astounding historical revelations, pits him against a ruthless ancient brotherhood, and sends him from Denmark to Belgium to Vietnam then on to one of the greatest archaeological sites in the world: the tomb of China’s First Emperor, guarded by an underground army of terra-cotta warriors, which has inexplicably remained sealed for more than two thousand years--its mysteries about to be revealed.
The seventh explosive Cotton Malone adventure - the first to be set in America.Cotton Malone has been called on to defend his country's safety in many exotic locations around the world, often using his knowledge of history to get to the heart of mysteries and conspiracies stretching back for centuries. But never has the danger been quite so close to home.A stunning opening sets the tone of explosive action and mind-bending intrigue as Cotton battles an extraordinary group of families whose unseen influence dates back to the pages of the U.S. Constitution - and whose thirst for power is about to be satisfied by the cracking of a code devised by Thomas Jefferson himself.
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steve Berry’s The Columbus Affair.
The Amber Room is one of the greatest treasures ever made by man: an entire room forged of exquisite amber, from its four massive walls to its finely crafted furniture. But it is also the subject of one of history’s most intriguing mysteries. Originally commissioned in 1701 by Frederick I of Prussia, the Room was later perfected Tsarskoe Selo, the Russian imperial city. In 1941, German troops invaded the Soviet Union, looting everything in their wake and seizing the Amber Room. When the Allies began the bombing of Germany in August 1944, the Room was hidden. And despite the best efforts of treasure hunters and art collectors from around the world, it has never been seen again.
Now, two powerful men have set their best operatives loose in pursuit, and the hunt has begun once more. . . .
Life is good for Atlanta judge Rachel Cutler. She loves her job, loves her kids, and remains civil to her ex-husband, Paul. But everything changes when her father, a man who survived the horrors of World War II, dies under strange circumstances--and leaves behind clues to a secret he kept his entire life . . . a secret about something called the Amber Room.
Desperate to know the truth about her father’s suspicious dealings, Rachel takes off for Germany, with Paul close behind. Shortly after arriving, they find themselves involved with a cast of shadowy characters who all claim to share their quest. But as they learn more about the history of the treasure they seek, Rachel and Paul realize they’re in way over their heads. Locked in a treacherous game with ruthless professional killers and embroiled in a treasure hunt of epic proportions, Rachel and Paul suddenly find themselves on a collision course with the forces of power, evil, and history itself.
A brilliant adventure and a scintillating tale of intrigue, deception, art, and murder, The Amber Room is a classic tale of suspense--and the debut of a strong new voice in the world of the international thriller.
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steve Berry’s The Columbus Affair.
Explosive in both its pace and its revelations, The Third Secret is a remarkable international thriller. Bestselling author Steve Berry tackles some of the most controversial ideas of our time in a breakneck journey through the history of the Church and the future of religion.
Fatima, Portugal, 1917: The Virgin Mary appears to three peasant children, sharing with them three secrets, two of which are soon revealed to the world. The third secret is sealed away in the Vatican, read only by popes, and not disclosed until the year 2000. When revealed, its quizzical tone and anticlimactic nature leave many faithful wondering if the Church has truly unveiled all of the Virgin Mary’s words–or if a message far more important has been left in the shadows.
Vatican City, present day: Papal secretary Father Colin Michener is concerned for the Pope. Night after restless night, Pope Clement XV enters the Vatican’s Riserva, the special archive open only to popes, where the Church’s most clandestine and controversial documents are stored. Though unsure of the details, Michener knows that the Pope’ s distress stems from the revelations of Fatima.
Equally concerned, but not out of any sense of compassion, is Alberto Cardinal Valendrea, the Vatican’s Secretary of State,. Valendrea desperately covets the papacy, having narrowly lost out to Clement at the last conclave. Now the Pope’s interest in Fatima threatens to uncover a shocking ancient truth that Valendrea has kept to himself for many years.
When Pope Clement sends Michener to the Romanian highlands, then to a Bosnian holy site, in search of a priest–possibly one of the last people on Earth who knows Mary’s true message– a perilous set of events unfolds. Michener finds himself embroiled in murder, suspicion, suicide, deceit, and his forbidden passion for a beloved woman. In a desperate search for answers, he travels to Pope Clement’s birthplace in Germany, where he learns that the third secret of Fatima may dictate the very fate of the Church–a fate now lying in Michener’s own hands.
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steve Berry’s The Columbus Affair and a Cotton Malone dossier.
As a child, former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone was told his father died in a submarine disaster in the North Atlantic, but now he wants the full story and asks his ex-boss, Stephanie Nelle, to secure the military files. What he learns stuns him: His father’s sub was a secret nuclear vessel lost on a highly classified mission beneath the ice shelves of Antarctica.
But Malone isn’t the only one after the truth.
Twin sisters Dorothea Lindauer and Christl Falk are fighting for the fortune their mother has promised to whichever of them discovers what really became of their father–who died on the same submarine that Malone’s father captained.
The sisters know something Malone doesn’t: Inspired by strange clues discovered in Charlemagne’ s tomb, the Nazis explored Antarctica before the Americans, as long ago as 1938. Now Malone discovers that cryptic journals penned in “the language of heaven,” inscrutable conundrums posed by an ancient historian, and the ill-fated voyage of his father are all tied to a revelation of immense consequence for humankind.
In an effort to ensure that this explosive information never rises to the surface, Langford Ramsey, an ambitious navy admiral, has begun a brutal game of treachery, blackmail, and assassination. As Malone embarks on a dangerous quest with the sisters–one that leads them from an ancient German cathedral to a snowy French citadel to the unforgiving ice of Antarctica–he will finally confront the shocking truth of his father’s death and the distinct possibility of his own.
A pacy international thriller with a historical twist, from the New York Times bestselling author.Cotton Malone is back and the stakes were never higher: a deadly virus that could wipe out civilisation as we know it - and a cure that lies buried in the past.The Venetian League, a secret group of 45 political and economic leaders from around the world, has joined forces with a coalition of former Soviet republics to create a potentially devastating biological weapon, a bird flu-like virus that has been artificially mutated to pass from human to human. Whoever develops the cure would control the future of global warfare. Yet that cure may have been discovered centuries ago, and if so the clue to the location of the formula lies buried with Alexander the Great.When Cotton Malone's former companion Cassiopeia Vitt hears about it, she and Cotton join the hunt for Alexander's long-lost tomb, and what at first seems to Cotton a wild quest for the answer to a perplexing historical riddle becomes a harrowing fight for truth that has unimaginable repercussions, both geopolitical and terrifyingly personal.
A pacy international suspense thriller with a historical twist, from the New York Times bestselling author.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?
Steve Berry offers his twistiest thriller yet, in a new adventure starring Cotton Malone and a secret conspiracy dating back to Napoleon.A Cotton Malone adventure involving a sinister conspiracy, a quest for vengeance, and a secret treasure linked to Napoleon...12.40 a.m. Copenhagen. Cotton Malone wakes up to find a stranger in his house, bearing bad news: Malone's closest and most dangerous friend, Henrik Thorvaldsen, is in serious trouble - and the men who want to kill Thorvaldsen are on Malone's doorstep.Thorvaldsen has been tracking a shadowy group called the Paris Club. Not only does he believe that they are about to trigger a global financial meltdown, but also that one of the club's members murdered his son, Cai, two years ago. Thorvaldsen won't rest until he has avenged his boy's death.Dragged into his friend's schemes and secretly under pressure from the US government to stop both Thorvaldsen and the Paris Club, Malone soon discovers that the key to defeating the conspiracy and saving his friend's life - and his own - lies in the past, and an astounding treasure that Napoleon took to his grave.
Steve Berry’s bestselling thrillers have mesmerized suspense fans around the world, but his novels alone can’t contain all the exciting exploits of death-defying agent Cotton Malone and his smart, sexy sidekick, Cassiopeia Vitt. Catch all the action between the blockbusters in this trio of suspenseful short stories that capture Cotton and Cassiopeia at their history-hunting, heart-stopping best. Read them as prequels to Cotton’s full-length epics or stunning stand-alone adventures. Either way, this eBook bundle packs all the punch adrenaline junkies have come to expect from the bold imagination of Steve Berry.
“In Malone, Berry has created a classic, complex hero.”--USA Today
THE BALKAN ESCAPE
Prequel to The Emperor’s Tomb
As a favor to enigmatic billionaire Henrik Thorvaldsen, Cassiopeia Vitt treks into Bulgaria’s Rila mountains in search of a buried stash of exceedingly rare artifacts from a bygone civilization: the ancient tomb of a Thracian king. But when her presence is discovered by a shadowy group of Russians secretly mining the area, she needs a way out. Whom can I trust? becomes the question, and her life depends on making the right decision.
THE DEVIL’S GOLD
Prequel to The Jefferson Key
For eight years he’s been plotting, waiting, scheming to kill Federal agents Christopher Combs and Cotton Malone, whom he blames for the loss of his career. But as rogue agent Jonathan Wyatt prepares for a final confrontation in a remote South American village, he makes a discovery that stretches back to the horrors of World War II, to the astounding secret of a child’s birth, to Martin Bormann and Eva Braun--and to a fortune in lost gold.
THE ADMIRAL’S MARK
Prequel to The Columbus Affair
Cotton Malone never cared for the shady dealings of his brother-in-law, Scott Brown. But after Scott dies while scuba diving, Malone heads to Haiti where he learns that, beneath the crystal clear waters, his brother-in-law had found the sunken wreckage of the Santa Maria, the fabled flagship of Christopher Columbus. Setting out to piece together what happened, Malone quickly realizes that he’s not the only man there with questions--and that he’ll have to fight just to get out of Haiti alive.
A family’s secret, a ruthless fanatic, and a covert arm of the American government--all are linked by a single puzzling possibility:
What if everything we know about the discovery of America was a lie? What if that lie was designed to hide the secret of why Columbus sailed in 1492? And what if that 500-year-old secret could violently reshape the modern political world?
Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist Tom Sagan has written hard-hitting articles from hot spots around the world. But when one of his stories from the Middle East is exposed as a fraud, his professional reputation crashes and burns. Now he lives in virtual exile--haunted by bad decisions and a shocking truth he can never prove: that his downfall was a deliberate act of sabotage by an unknown enemy. But before Sagan can end his torment with the squeeze of a trigger, fate intervenes in the form of an enigmatic stranger. This stranger forces Sagan to act--and his actions attract the attention of the Magellan Billet, a top-secret corps of the United States Justice Department that deals with America’s most sensitive investigations. Sagan suddenly finds himself caught in an international incident, the repercussions of which will shudder not only Washington, D.C., but also Jerusalem. Coaxed into a deadly cat-and-mouse game, unsure who’s friend and who’s foe, Sagan is forced to Vienna, Prague, then finally into the Blue Mountains of Jamaica--where his survival hinges on his rewriting everything we know about Christopher Columbus.
Don’t miss Steve Berry’s short story “The Admiral’s Mark” and a sneak peek of his new novel, The King’s Deception, in the back of the book.
In this original eBook novella by the New York Times bestselling author of The King’s Deception, globetrotting intelligence agent Cotton Malone is lured into dangerous intrigue surrounding the world’s most famous royals--and uncovers a murderous conspiracy of terrorists and traitors, all born from an ancient tale of Saxon history.
“In Malone, [Steve] Berry has created a classic, complex hero.”--USA Today
In England to participate in the trial of suspected international terrorists, Justice Department agent Cotton Malone is mysteriously summoned to an audience with the Queen of England. A cryptic call has warned of looming danger to the ailing queen’s son and grandson--the next two heirs in line for the throne. And when the source of that ominous information, a notorious tabloid publisher, dies mysteriously, the royal family has reason to fear a genuine conspiracy. But they also suspect that the enemy lies within--and no one at Buckingham Palace, or even the nation’s own Secret Intelligence Service, can be trusted. Now it’s up to Malone to discover the truth. Matching wits with a power-mad politician and a vicious royal blue blood, he must race against time through the streets of London to the forbidden reaches of Iceland, all to stop a monstrous plot to seize the monarchy--one that stretches back to the time of Arthur.
Praise for Steve Berry and his Cotton Malone series
“Malone, a hero with a personal stake in the proceedings, is a welcome respite from the cold, calculating superspies who litter the genre.”--Entertainment Weekly
“Steve Berry gets better and better with each new book.”--The Huffington Post
“Savvy readers . . . cannot go wrong with Cotton Malone.”--Library Journal
“Berry raises this genre’s stakes.”--The New York Times
“I love this guy.”--#1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child
There is a secret from our history - 500 years old - startling in its revelations and devastating in its political impact. A secret that has, thankfully, stayed hidden. Until now.Former Justice Department agent, Cotton Malone, travels to England and finds himself caught in a dark conspiracy born long ago, in the time of the Tudors. Now both the CIA and MI6 seem to be competing to uncover the mystery and, for Malone, supposedly on holiday with his son, Gary, it's not just the action which comes thick and fast. When Gary disappears, Malone is forced into a race against time, as he battles to decipher a puzzle that leads him from the Middle Temple to the chapel at Windsor Castle, from an Oxford college to the sewers beneath Hampton Court. With assassins, traitors, spies, and dangerous disciples of a secret society closing in, Malone discovers that the solution to the mystery will not only draw him into a lethal trap, but force him closer to his own troubling past.And a shocking revelation.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This Cotton Malone adventure blends gripping contemporary political intrigue, Tudor treachery, and high-octane thrills into one riveting novel of suspense.
Cotton Malone and his fifteen-year-old son, Gary, are headed to Europe. As a favor to his former boss at the Justice Department, Malone agrees to escort a teenage fugitive back to England. But after he is greeted at gunpoint in London, both the fugitive and Gary disappear, and Malone learns that he’s stumbled into a high-stakes diplomatic showdown--an international incident fueled by geopolitical gamesmanship and shocking Tudor secrets.
At its heart is the Libyan terrorist convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103, who is set to be released by Scottish authorities for “humanitarian reasons.” An outraged American government objects, but nothing can persuade the British to intervene.
Except, perhaps, Operation King’s Deception.
Run by the CIA, the operation aims to solve a centuries-old mystery, one that could rock Great Britain to its royal foundations.
Blake Antrim, the CIA operative in charge of King’s Deception, is hunting for the spark that could rekindle a most dangerous fire, the one thing that every Irish national has sought for generations: a legal reason why the English must leave Northern Ireland. The answer is a long-buried secret that calls into question the legitimacy of the entire forty-five-year reign of Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, who completed the conquest of Ireland and seized much of its land. But Antrim also has a more personal agenda, a twisted game of revenge in which Gary is a pawn. With assassins, traitors, spies, and dangerous disciples of a secret society closing in, Malone is caught in a lethal bind. To save Gary he must play one treacherous player against another--and only by uncovering the incredible truth can he hope to prevent the shattering consequences of the King’s Deception.
Don’t miss Steve Berry’s novella The Tudor Plot and an excerpt from The Lincoln Myth in the back of the book.
Praise for The King’s Deception
“A Dan Brown-ian secular conspiracy about the Virgin Queen driving nonstop international intrigue.”--Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Steve Berry
“Berry raises this genre’s stakes.”--The New York Times
“I love this guy.”--#1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child
“Forget Clancy and Cussler. When it comes to this genre, there is simply no one better.”--The Providence Journal
From the Paperback edition.
The first four Cotton Malone novels - The Templar Legacy, The Alexandria Link, The Venetian Betrayal and >i>The Charlamagne Pursuit - collected into a single book.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A Cotton Malone adventure involving a flaw in the United States Constitution, a mystery about Abraham Lincoln, and a political issue that’s as explosive as it is timely--not only in Malone’s world, but in ours
September 1861: All is not as it seems. With these cryptic words, a shocking secret passed down from president to president comes to rest in the hands of Abraham Lincoln. And as the first bloody clashes of the Civil War unfold, Lincoln alone must decide how best to use this volatile knowledge: save thousands of American lives, or keep the young nation from being torn apart forever?
The present: In Utah, the fabled remains of Mormon pioneers whose nineteenth-century expedition across the desert met with a murderous end have been uncovered. In Washington, D.C., the official investigation of an international entrepreneur, an elder in the Mormon church, has sparked a political battle between the White House and a powerful United States senator. In Denmark, a Justice Department agent, missing in action, has fallen into the hands of a dangerous zealot--a man driven by divine visions to make a prophet’s words reality. And in a matter of a few short hours, Cotton Malone has gone from quietly selling books at his shop in Denmark to dodging bullets in a high-speed boat chase.
All it takes is a phone call from his former boss in Washington, and suddenly the ex-agent is racing to rescue an informant carrying critical intelligence. It’s just the kind of perilous business that Malone has been trying to leave behind, ever since he retired from the Justice Department. But once he draws enemy blood, Malone is plunged into a deadly conflict--a constitutional war secretly set in motion more than two hundred years ago by America’s Founding Fathers.
From the streets of Copenhagen to the catacombs of Salzburg to the rugged mountains of Utah, the grim specter of the Civil War looms as a dangerous conspiracy gathers power. Malone risks life, liberty, and his greatest love in a race for the truth about Abraham Lincoln--while the fate of the United States of America hangs in the balance.
Praise for Steve Berry and his Cotton Malone series
“In Malone, [Steve] Berry has created a classic, complex hero.”--USA Today
“Malone, a hero with a personal stake in the proceedings, is a welcome respite from the cold, calculating superspies who litter the genre.”--Entertainment Weekly
“Steve Berry gets better and better with each new book.”--The Huffington Post
“Savvy readers . . . cannot go wrong with Cotton Malone.”--Library Journal
“Berry raises this genre’s stakes.”--The New York Times
“I love this guy.”--#1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child
From the Hardcover edition.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Four presidents of the United States have been assassinated--in 1865, 1881, 1901, and 1963--each murder seemingly unrelated. But what if those presidents were all killed for the shocking same reason: a clause contained in the United States Constitution? This is the question faced by former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone. When President Danny Daniels is nearly killed in the heart of Manhattan, Malone risks his life to foil the murder--only to find himself at odds with the Commonwealth, a secret society of pirates first assembled during the American Revolution. Racing across the nation and taking to the high seas, Malone and Cassiopeia Vitt must break a secret cipher originally possessed by Thomas Jefferson, unravel a mystery concocted by Andrew Jackson, and unearth a document forged by the Founding Fathers themselves--one powerful enough to make the Commonwealth unstoppable.
Don’t miss Steve Berry’s short story “The Devil’s Gold” and an excerpt from The King's Deception in the back of the book.
From the Paperback edition.
International bestseller Steve Berry returns with another brilliant Cotton Malone thriller involving a mystery about Abraham Lincoln and a political issue that's as explosive as it is timely - not only in Malone's world, but in ours.September 1861: All is not as it seems. With these cryptic words, a shocking secret passed down from president to president comes to rest in the hands of Abraham Lincoln. And as the first bloody clashes of the Civil War unfold, Lincoln alone must decide how best to use this volatile knowledge: save thousands of American lives, or keep the young nation from being torn apart forever?The present: In Utah, the fabled remains of Mormon pioneers whose nineteenth-century expedition across the desert met with a murderous end have been uncovered. In Washington, D.C., the official investigation of an international entrepreneur, an elder in the Mormon church, has sparked a political battle between the White House and a powerful United States senator. In Denmark, a Justice Department agent, missing in action, has fallen into the hands of a dangerous zealot - a man driven by divine visions to make a prophet's words reality. And in a matter of a few short hours, Cotton Malone has gone from quietly selling books at his shop in Denmark to dodging bullets in a high-speed boat chase.All it takes is a phone call from his former boss in Washington, and suddenly the ex-agent is racing to rescue an informant carrying critical intelligence. It's just the kind of perilous business that Malone has been trying to leave behind, ever since he retired from the Justice Department. But once he draws enemy blood, Malone is plunged into a deadly conflict - a constitutional war secretly set in motion more than two hundred years ago by America's Founding Fathers.From the streets of Copenhagen to the catacombs of Salzburg to the rugged mountains of Utah, the grim spectre of the Civil War looms as a dangerous conspiracy gathers power. Malone risks life, liberty, and his greatest love in a race for the truth about Abraham Lincoln - while the fate of the United States of America hangs in the balance.
A new Cotton Malone adventure that takes our hero from Europe to the Far East in a race to unlock the mystery of an ancient tomb.Hearing that his old friend Cassiopeia Vitt is in trouble, Malone follows the few clues he has and realises that they are in the middle of something huge, involving Russian and US oil interests and a centuries-old secret.After stumbling across two dead bodies and into the crosshairs of his former boss, Malone finds himself in a race to unravel the mystery of an emperor's tomb, a sinister society, and a deadly battle between two ruthless men for supremacy in China - and the world.
