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THE VENETIAN BETRAYAL
by Steve Berry
Ballantine, December 2007
496 pages
$25.95
ISBN: 0345485777


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Irina Zovastina is a powerful despot, someone you would not like to cross. During the fall of the Soviet Union she managed to unite several of the breakaway Russian States to form the Central Asian Federation. She knows how to get results and she will use everything at her disposal to make things happen. She will kill, bribe, intimidate, or threaten anyone who gets in her way.

She also knows everything there is to know about Alexander the Great, except, of course, where his grave is. In fact, she sees herself as his modern incarnation. She now intends to outdo her hero in terms of world conquest, but she needs to find Alexander's burial place to make it happen, and she needs certain antiquities to do it.

Up against her is former U.S. Justice Department agent Cotton Malone, who was almost killed during a heist at a Danish museum. When Malone learns from his longtime ally, Cassiopeia Vitt, what caused the fire that almost ended his life, he is dragged to the middle of this struggle gainst Irina.. He will have to find the tomb first before anybody else. As cliched as it sounds, the fate of the world is in his hands.

THE VENETIAN BETRAYAL is the third book in an action adventure series featuring Cotton Malone. As a rare book seller Malone knows where everything is, even though he is constantly being manipulated into situations that he should have walked away in the first place. The way some of his so-called friends and allies push him into helping them with their problems tends to annoy the reader who is only wants to get on with the action. In the theater of one’s head it is easy to visualize the special effects with all the explosions, car chases, boat chases, and the book’s exotic locales, not to speak, of course, of the inevitable showdown.

The book is entertaining enough only if character development is unimportant. There are a number of surprises from some of the series recurring characters that are just a bit too much. It is a good book to fill the time, but just don’t expect to remember much of it after a few days.

Reviewed by Angel L. Soto, January 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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