Publishers Weekly
12/18/2023
Bestseller Berry never takes his foot off the gas in the hyperactive 18th thriller featuring Cotton Malone (after The Last Kingdom). After ostensibly retiring from his chaotic life as a top-secret U.S. intelligence operative to run a sleepy bookshop in Copenhagen, Malone’s pulled back into action by a request from the CIA’s European station chief, Derrick Koger. After WWII, Koger reveals, the nascent CIA discovered hundreds of millions of dollars in gold that the Japanese hid stashed in Luxembourg’s Bank of St. George. Koger asks Malone to keep an eye on bank employee Kelly Austin, whose safety may be under threat, in connection with her proximity to the gold. After Malone thwarts an attempt on Kelly’s life, he discovers that she’s actually Suzy Baldwin, one of his former lovers, in disguise. To keep Suzy safe, Malone sets out to uncover the motives of her pursuers and turns up evidence of a vast, cryptocurrency-focused financial conspiracy. Though there’s enough sound and fury to satisfy diehard series fans, uneven prose and an overbusy plot keep this from reaching the heights of previous entries. Here’s hoping Berry tightens the focus for Malone’s next adventure. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
"The Atlas Maneuver delivers one thrill after another and is easily Berry's best book in years."—The Real Book Spy
Berry's talent for mixing nonstop action with history is in full swing in [The Atlas Maneuver.] One of the best features of Berry's novels is the writer's note, in which he breaks down the facts behind the fiction, and it's essential reading since everything in this thriller seems all too real.—Jeff Ayers
PRAISE FOR STEVE BERRY: “Berry pumps the veins of history with action-packed adrenaline.”—Chicago Tribune
“Berry is the master scientist with a perfect formula for the bestseller lists.”—Associated Press
“[Berry] has a genuine feel for the factual gaps that give history its tantalizing air of the unknown.”—New York Times
“Bestseller Berry once again shows there’s no working author more skilled at combining thrilling adventure with engrossing historical detail."—Publishers Weekly
“Prolific writer Steve Berry has been creating intelligent, top-shelf fiction for decades.”—BookReporter.com
FEBRUARY 2024 - AudioFile
In this eighteenth entry in Berry's bestselling Cotton Malone series, narrator Scott Brick shepherds the new adventure with perfect pacing and emphasis. A CIA investigation into a stockpile of WWII Japanese gold stashed in Luxembourg's Bank of St. George pushes retired Justice Department operative Malone out of his Copenhagen bookstore and back into action, babysitting the pile. Brick portrays Malone and the cast of international villains with an authoritative and emotive delivery. A woman at the bank is threatened, and Malone discovers she's living under an alias and is a former lover. Brick ratchets up the tension in his delivery as Malone uncovers a vast cryptocurrency conspiracy. R.O. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2023-12-16
Cotton Malone, who just can’t stay retired from international intrigue, joins the mad dance of competitors for a fortune in bitcoin.
So many people have forgotten about the horde of gold the retreating Japanese hid on Luzon Island in the Philippines that it’s not at all clear who has legal title to it. That’s perfect for Robert Citrone, the retired CIA overseer of the Black Eagle Trust, which has used the gold to fund covert operations around the world. Just as Derrick Koger, the European station chief for the CIA, is pulling Malone away from his Copenhagen bookstore to help him investigate possible misdeeds swirling around Luxembourg’s Bank of St. George and its ruthless chief operating officer, Catherine Gledhill, other interested parties turn up in often surprising connections. Freelance assassin Kyra Lhota executes Armenian oligarch Samvel Yerevan and moves on to her next target. Malone’s sometime lover Cassiopeia Vitt is snatched by high-ranking Japanese security chief Aiko Ejima. His former lover Suzy Baldwin resurfaces as Kelly Austin, BSG’s director of special technology, who’s concealing secrets from Malone and the rest of the world. They’re all on the trail of a fabulous cache of bitcoin that in the absence of any legal records of ownership will belong, like the Luzon gold, to anyone who can track it down and grab it. The grandly scaled complications that follow feature countless broken alliances and the deaths of a fearsome number of nonfranchise characters. An extended author’s note explains what’s historically accurate (quite a bit, as it turns out) and what’s fabricated (quite a bit more).
Speculators who haven’t been put off by bitcoin’s recent crash will enjoy this walk—well, run—on the wild side.
