Kim T. reviewed on 9/10/2009

Cotton Malone, former agent for the US Dept. of Justice, is enjoying a quiet life in Copenhagen as proprietor of a newly refurbished antiquarian book shop, when he is once again called out of retirement by his wealthy and highly connected friends Henrik Thorvaldsen and Cassiopeia Vitt. This time they want his help tracking down whoever is secretly amassing a collection of ancient Greek coins and burning down museums all over Europe in the process. Meanwhile, the American Secret Service is keeping a wary eye on Zovastina, a buzkashi-playing female dictator in Central Asia who fancies herself the modern incarnation of Alexander the Great. When an American agent sent to Italy to investigate the connections between Zovastina and a secretive group of wealthy international businessmen suddenly disappears, Cotton and his friends find themselves working in parallel with Cotton's former boss from USDOJ Stephanie Nelle. Their paths finally cross at the Basilica di San Marco in Venice, where the last of the Greek coins resides and where Zovastina has just arrived to observe the opening of St. Mark's tomb for the since the martyred saint was interred there in 1089. Or was he? There is an ancient rumor which says that the remains brought from Mark's original tomb in Alexandria to Venice were not his, but those of Alexander the Great. The clues to this mystery seem to lie in the ancient coins and in a riddle composed by Alexander's general Ptolemy. The quest for Alexander's final resting place takes the team from Venice to the Pamir Mountains of Central Asia. There, behind the walls of a modern Xanadu built by one of Zovastina's unsavory associates may lie not only the answers they seek, but also a secret of even greater significance for the world in general--and for Cotton's friend Cassiopeia in particular.

If you enjoyed Steve Berry's earlier Cotton Malone stories, you will like this addition to the series as well. It follows the same formula: a first chapter giving a first-hand account of some atrocity related to the real historical event that provides the central mystery in the story; another chapter introducing the personal crisis that draws Cotton Malone away from his quiet bookshop and sets him on the trail of the latest bad guys. The villains are generally unscrupulous politicians or businessmen who have some new information about the historical mystery which they plan to exploit to gain untold wealth and power. They will be supported throughout the story by an endless supply of mercenaries with an inexplicable sense of loyalty to their leaders but no moral sense or conscience otherwise. Cotton will lose at least one former friend or associate to these bad guys in each book, but he will be able to count on continuing characters Thorvaldsen, Witt and Nelle to show up and rescue him from any inescapable peril. They will then work together to support him as he uses logic and an encyclopedic knowledge of history gleaned from rare books to solve the mystery. OK, it ain't Shakespeare, but it is fast-paced, page-turning fun. You can't help but learn a little history, too.

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