Skip to main content

Book Review: The Venetian Betrayal

Author: Steve Berry
Genre: Historical, thriller, adventure, action
Original Title: The Venetian Betrayal
Series: Cotton Malone 3rd book ( The Alexandria Link, Templar Legacy)
________________________________________________________


If you love books that deal with treasure hunts, unraveling historical puzzles and stuff; if you have loved Dan Brown’s Da Vinci’s Code then you will fall in love with Steve Berry’s works.

Steve Berry’s plots generally pick a historical legend – a man or place and the story revolves around it. In this case, the title TheVenetian Betrayal misleads you to think that this book is all about Venice. This book has a Venetian connection but the central theme is all about Alexander the great.

This is the third book in the series featuring Cotton Malone, a retired US justice department employee now running a book store in Copenhagen. Malone with his friends Cassiopea Vitt and Henrik Thorvalsden take on another villain bent on world domination, Irina Zovastina, supreme minister of the Central Asian Federation, and her friends who are plotting to use a bioweapon to destroy Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Malone races around the globe trying to find the means to foil the minister.

Is Irina the real villain or do we have other vested interests that are using her to meet their ends? So where was Alexander actually buried? Read the book for all answers. To quote a friend “Together, Cotton and Cassiopeia must outrun and outthink the forces allied against them. Their perilous quest will take them to the shores of Denmark, deep into the venerated monuments of Venice, and finally high inside the desolate Pamir mountains of Central Asia to unravel a riddle whose solution could destroy or save millions of people–depending on who finds the lost tomb first”

There is so much in this book that will keep you hooked – the Greek fire that can burn down the buildings in minutes, the Venetian council and how they have been controlling world finances, Alexander’s life and death, the manuscripts, the turbulent history of central asia, Alexander’s posthumous Greek kingdom and of course, the intelligence agencies from USA who at times are silent watchers and at times the ones calling shots that add to the thrills and frills of this book.

This is a very entertaining read for history buffs but then there is a lot of fiction too (which has been clearly acknowledged by the author at the end of the book). And for the non- history buffs, give it a try; you will relish the fact that you have been given history lessons while you were busy reading entertaining fiction.

________________________________________________________

Published: Hodder & Stoughton

ISBN: 9780340933459
Pages: 560
Format: Paperback
________________________________________________________




Labels:

Comments

Shruthi Srinidhi said…
You said it all... It sure is a must read. Loved it :)
22/4/11
Sarah malik said…
good to see u back..hope u r here to stay from now on :)
as for the book...Sounds like I m gonna enjoy this one but Exams knocking d door..louder each day, maybe after that!

sarah
24/4/11
The Xeno said…
wow! I love Dan Brown type books. And so to go by what you're saying.. looks like i've got to get my hands on this soon.

I've mentioned you here.
http://bit.ly/eHzzHC
25/4/11
MuddassirShah said…
@Shruthi,
I d love to read your review of the book.

@Subtlescribbler Sarah,
I plan to, Inshallah I will try and keep up.

@TheXeno,
Those are amazing words. Thanks would be something modest to say. But I thank you from the bottom of my heart. :)
Unfortunately I am not able to comment on your blog.
25/4/11
Anonymous said…
Hi Muddassir,

Wel-Come back..
Nice review.. I have read his 'The Amber Room', to be honest.. I didn't like his writing style.. It seems to me more like Dan Brown but he (Steve Berry) lack the ability to keep his reader engaged with his book..

Let me try this one.. seems interesting after reading your review..
26/4/11
Usha said…
I haven't been here in a long long while. lol.

I love Dan Brown's work. I am a crazy fan that read all of his work. So guess will give Steve Berry a try.

I have to say history in novels is way interesting than history in texts. ;) I ain't a history buff. :)

Cheers
16/5/11
Arooj said…
review has been written in very intelligent way it arouses the reader's curiosity without any spoiler.
7/5/17
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

COM Surrogate has stopped working

I started pessimistically with Windows vista and as my mom says, things go from bad to worse when you are pessimistic. Everything I to run on my vista laptop gets screwed up and the error? The one and only "COM SURROGATE HAS STOPPED WORKING" I did my bit of research on this topic and luckily didnt have to look far. The issue was with the NERO softwares on my system. The easiest solution was to uninstall Nero but, that is not an easy affair. So this is what i did : Rename the file C:\ProgramFiles\Common Files\Ahead\DSFilter\NeVideo. ax to NeVideo.ax.bak and NeVideoHD.ax to NeVideo.ax.bak  Please Note that these files are the root cause for the issue, so you can rename them any which you like it. Once renamed the issue is resolved and can have relief for a long time. Also note that this may be one of the reasons along DivX and other softwares. For a detailed solution read this article . If you like my post, you can   FAVE it here
25 comments
Read more

Life of Pi

Have you read/watched Robinson Crusoe ? No? Cast Away (Starring Tom Hanks) at least? If you haven’t, do it. Both are wonderful and so is Life of Pi. Author : Yann Martel Time/era of story - 1960's-1970’s Type : Adventures Journal I wanted to read a sea adventure and that is when a friend of mine suggested me to read this book. This is a simple tell-tale about the survival of a 15 year old kid in sea for 227 days in a small life boat with some extra ordinary company of the wild animals – Richard Parker, a Tiger; a female Orangutan, a zebra and a Hyena. The book starts of detailing his life as the son of a zoo owner in Madras, his explorations and affiliation to Christianity and Islam. Then when his family plans to move to Canada, things go awry and a sad shipwreck afflicts killing them all. Piscine Patel or “PI” manages to escape in a small boat only to find out later that he has company, dangerous company – wild animals. From here on, it is struggle for the survival, surviv
17 comments
Read more

Motives and Actions ...A short story

He entered the village limping; his entire weight supported by a wooden staff that appeared to be in a shape bettered by his own. The sun was retiring for the day and so were the peasants. Young kids returning from school and the children dirtied from the farm work were running around carefree. The police constable along with some young men was trying to force the children back to their home lest the kidnapper make an appearance and abduct the children. The kidnapper had terrorized the village for a few months now, holding children for ransom until defrayment.  No one had ever seen him and that made the matters worse. The police constable was under a lot of pressure to catch the kidnapper and he wanted to prove his worth. The constable had this hunch. Anyday now the kidnapper will make his move and the constable will catch him. The prize for the catch was more than the pride at stake. The reward money to bring in the Kidnapper was handsome plus a photo published in the local newspape
24 comments
Read more

Tongue Twisters

Of late, I have been fascinated with tongue twisters. They are quite a challenge, at times they are stress busters or at times they may add the stress load. I have done my bit of look out and this is wat I found: Wikipedia states: "A tongue-twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly. Tongue-twisters may rely on similar but distinct phonemes (e.g., s [s] and sh [ʃ]), unfamiliar constructs in loanwords , or other features of a language.The hardest tongue-twister in the English language (according to Guinness World Records ) is supposedly The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick. William Poundstone claims that the hardest English tongue twister is "The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us." [1] " I found these interesting, Betty Botter had some butter, "But," she said, "this butter's bitter. If I bake this bitter butter, It would make my batter bitter. But a bit of bet
31 comments
Read more

Scope of RTI Act, India 2005

Thomas Jefferson, 3 rd President of USA(1801-09) and author of the Declaration of Independence says  “ A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine ”. A thought provoking statement with lot of depth to it. It just doesn’t talk of majority in the parliament but about all those wrong-doers who wish to grow their wealth at the expense of everyone else. Right to Information Act, was brought on the table and made a reality just to counter such elements of the society. RTI guarantees transparency of Information that is vital to its functioning and to contain corruption. In other words, it aids to hold governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed. We will try and understand more about the SCOPE of RTI, What information is accessible and what isn’t. SCOPE of RTI The following Governments, Organizations  and bodies are covered under RTI and are subject to it.   Central, State
16 comments
Read more