So I picked up three Steve Berry books a couple of weeks ago at the library’a used book sale one of them, The Charlemange Pursuit is Book 14 for 2012. The novel is the 4th in Berry’s Cotton Malone series. So far this is only my second Malone book the other being the current book (7) in the series The Jefferson Key. I have read one other Berry book The Amber Room, which is not a Cotton Malone book, which is probably why I don’t remember him in that book, ya’ think! Anyway I do really like Berry’s novels and the mixture of historical fact with some Berry fiction mixed in. The Charlemange Pursuit includes some historical information about the Carolingian period of European history, secret US submarines and a highly advanced civilization that may predate any civilization that we know! Oh and the search by the Nazi’s for their Aryan forefathers.
The story starts when Cotton Malone is given papers that prove that his father a naval officer died not in an accident in the North Atlantic but rather on a secret submarine on mission to Antarctica ! To discover how and why his father died Cotton must solve the Charlemange Pursuit based on information provided by the daughters and wife of a German businessman Dietz Oberhauser, who was also on the submarine. Malone’s mission is made more difficult by the actions of the Director of Naval Intelligence Admiral Ramsey Langford, who is out to stop any discovery of what happened on that mission! So while Malone is in Europe figuring out the Pursuit, Malone’s former boss Stephanie Nelle is in the US battling Ramsey whose bent on eliminating everyone associated with the mission!! So there’s lots of action and twists and turns as Cotton deals with the twin daughters and wife of Oberhauser and Stephanie Langford’s hired assassin!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book maybe even more than The Jefferson Key and will certainly expect to spend more time discovering the world with Cotton Malone. I have books 3 The Venetian Betrayal and 5 The Paris Vendetta and the question is do I read them or go back and start at the begining. Since both of the books I’ve read stand pretty well on their own, I think I’ll go with the ones I have, and then I will fill in with the others later!! But now I think it’s time for a Janet Evanovich book Smokin’ Seventeen!