The Charlemagne Pursuit

Starred review from September 29, 2008
In bestseller Berry's fourth thriller to feature ex–Justice Department agent Cotton Malone (after The Venetian Betrayal
), Malone embarks on a search for answers about his father, Capt. Forrest Malone, after learning that instead of dying in 1971 in a nuclear sub accident in the North Atlantic, his father actually died while on a secret submarine mission to the Antarctic. Meanwhile, bad guy Adm. Langford Ramsey schemes to become the next ranking officer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The two story lines merge as a group led by Malone races to Antarctica, where they find a strange underground city belonging to the Aryans, an advanced race who inhabited the earth at the dawn of our own civilization. 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. 10-city author tour.

October 15, 2008
Secret-agent-turned-bookseller Cotton Malone searches for the truth about his father 's death; uncovers revelations about a brilliant early civilization spurned by the Nazis; and earns the enmity of an endlessly evil admiral.

Our manly middle-aged recurring hero (The Venetian Betrayal, 2007, etc.) barely remembers his father, a naval officer whose submarine sank without a trace in 1971 when Malone was just ten, but he 's got a line on the truth about that sinking, an incident the Navy has covered up to the present day. Malone 's ex-boss Stephanie Nelle discharges a debt by producing a top-secret report on the sinking, long kept buried by Adm. Langford Ramsey, chief of naval intelligence. In the way of thrillers, Malone must receive the report at a tram stop high in the Alps and villains must immediately try to snatch it back, forcing him to toss a bad man from a moving ski lift and to beat a bad woman within an inch of her life. Within hours, Malone becomes involved with a Bavarian billionaire family, the Oberhausers, whose patriarchs believed that the emperor Charlemagne and his trusty lieutenant Einhard were chums with the Watchers, survivors of a brilliant civilization that had its peak long before the pyramids. Hard-bitten matriarch Isabel Oberhauser and her beautiful but fatally conflicted twin daughters, Christl and Dorothea, are interested in the secret report because the twins ' dad was also on that submarine, which went missing not in the Atlantic, as promulgated by the Navy, but off Antarctica, where the Watchers ' civilization had its heyday. Meanwhile, back in the United States, Adm. Ramsey, who knows everything about that ancient society, has dispatched his favorite hired killer to create an opening at the top of the naval structure and sent another underling to eliminate Malone and the Oberhausers. Thank goodness we have a shrewd president.

Berry sticks to his successful but bland fact-and-fantasy format.

(COPYRIGHT (2008) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from September 15, 2008
Berry outdoes himself in his latest Cotton Malone adventure (after "The Venetian Betrayal"). Using his connections in the federal government, Cotton asks to see a classified file that details the mission that resulted in his father's death. He knew his father died on a submarine but none of the shocking details about where or why he died. But Cotton is not the only person who wants this file, and they kill to get it. Nazi missions to the Antarctic, ancient societies, and a valuable artifact from Charlemagne's tomb all play key roles as Malone uncovers the truth. So much is going on that there is enough material for two good books, let alone one great one. Mixed in with the complicated action, Berry finds the time to explore the characters as well, making this his most personal and best book to date. For all fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 8/08.]Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2008
Berrys Cotton Malone series is beginning to develop a case of been there, done that. In this fourth installment, the globe-trotting exgovernment agent turned bookseller is caught up in the mystery of Charlemagne, the eighth-century empire builder whose tomb is somehow linked to an early Nazi exploration of Antarctica and, even stranger, to the death of Cottons own father. The story follows the by-now overly familiar course: Cotton is thrust immediately into life-threatening danger and spends the rest of the novel evading pursuers and pursuing the solution to a historical puzzle. There are colorful bad guys, likable good guys, and plenty of action scenes (its a mystery why no one has turned these books into Indiana Joneslike movies). As in previous episodes, the dialogue ranges from graceful to clunky, and the frequent chunks of historical background are worked into the narrative in ways that vary from seamless to clumsy. This is a solid action thriller that will appeal to the authors fans, but how long Berry can prolong the series without tinkering even a bit with his formula is the real question here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)