Publishers Weekly
11/16/2020
At the start of bestseller Berry’s thrilling 16th Cotton Malone novel (after 2020’s The Warsaw Protocol), former U.S. president Danny Daniels travels to Bavaria at the request of Marie Eisenhuth, the pro-American German chancellor. In a police station interrogation room, he meets Hanna Cress, a shadowy Belarussian operative, who hands over an envelope containing some GPS coordinates. Cress says the coordinates indicate a place Daniels is supposed to visit, but she doesn’t know why. Then she lights up what turns out to be a cyanide-laced cigarette; just before expiring, she utters the word Kaiser. The meeting comes in the midst of a contentious German national election in which Eisenhuth faces a vigorous challenge from an anti-immigrant candidate with a murky past. Daniels contacts Malone, a former agent for a clandestine division of the Justice Department, and asks for his help to insure Eisenhuth’s reelection. Malone’s mission takes him and the de rigeur attractive female partner to Chile. Berry skillfully lays out yet another tantalizing historical what-if, this one connected to Hitler’s last days in his bunker below Berlin. Fans of over-the-top action yarns will be pleased. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
Praise for The Kaiser's Web
"[Berry's] most ambitious and relevant thriller to date. A no-holds-barred, high-stakes romp with echoes of class spy novelists like John le Carré, Len Deighton, and Alistair MacLean….This is a dream read for the unabashed thriller aficionado, a story stitched along classic lines that never disappoints in laying out a riveting and relentless tapestry.” — Providence Journal
"Berry skillfully lays out yet another tantalizing historical what-if.” — Publishers Weekly
“Berry keeps finding enticing alternate-history mysteries for Malone to solve . . . Keep ‘em coming.” — Booklist
"Ominously up-to-date." — Kirkus Reviews
"Steve Berry does it as well as anyone in the historical thriller / alternative history genre. . . Filled with mystery, history and intrigue, twists and turns that keep your head spinning until the very end, The Kaiser’s Web is a wonderfully informative, entertaining and fast-paced novel. This is a worthy new chapter in the Cotton Malone series!" — Mystery and Suspense Magazine
“Another thrill-ride, with lots of twists and turns that keep the reader on their toes.” —Red Carpet Crash
Library Journal
09/01/2020
In Cotton Malone's latest case, a newly surfaced dossier from a World War II-era Soviet spy could impact the race for Germany's chancellorship between a longtime public servant and a nationalist ranter. With a 350,000-copy first printing.
APRIL 2021 - AudioFile
This gripping audiobook, narrated ably by Scott Brick, focuses on the chilling premise that both candidates for chancellor of Germany are Hitler’s children. During the election, a secret dossier surfaces, which—if its claims are true—would upend the election and, perhaps, the geopolitical balance of power. Investigators from all over the world are called in, including Cotton Malone, a former Justice Department agent who is often consulted when long-buried secrets may come to light. Brick’s delivery is superb, bringing to the mic his ability to create unique voices—in this case, characters with distinctive accents from Germany, South America, and elsewhere. As the story unfolds, so, too, does Brick’s intensity—right up to the audiobook’s explosive conclusion. D.J.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2020-11-27
The rise of a neo-fascist with deep roots in the Third Reich pulls not-exactly-retired Justice Department agent Cotton Malone back for a 16th round of international intrigue.
A specter is haunting Europe. No, not the coronavirus but Theodor Pohl, an insurgent German nationalist who’s set his sights first on toppling long-serving chancellor Marie Eisenhuth, then on making the Fatherland great again—really, really great. Barely have Malone and his lover and comrade in arms Cassiopeia Vitt dusted themselves off from their leap from their mortally wounded plane in Poland on a single parachute than ex-President Danny Daniels is packing them off to Chile to investigate rumors that Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, and Martin Bormann didn’t all die in that bunker in 1945; at least one of them escaped to South America with billions in Nazi gold. The trip to Chile produces some eye-popping revelations and whittles down the cast, but instead of settling matters for good, it propels Malone and Vitt to South Africa for further investigations among people determined to be left alone until their time has come. Meanwhile, back in Germany, the chancellor realizes that she’s being undermined by not only Pohl and his ruthless acolyte, Josef Engle, but her xenophobic husband, Kurt Eisenhuth, whose past is even more checkered than she knows. Cannily mixing historical research with florid inventions that fill in gaps and sometimes fly in the face of the available evidence, Berry presents an ominously up-to-date world whose frenzied nationalism is a direct descendant of the Thousand-Year Reich.
Hitler may not live, but Heil Hitler is alive and all too well.
