Customer Reviews

The Venetian Betrayal: A Novel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I like Steve Berry.

Yes, his novels are implausible. No there is not a lot of character development. No one is going to read a Steve Berry novel and compare it to the literature they were forced to read in a college class in American literature.

But, biff, bam, boom, Steve Berry's characters make things happen. The action is continuing. You continually want to read another chapter, rather than fall asleep.

I think Berry's real talent is finding "holes" in authentic history and filling them with stories about what "could have" or "might have" been, or what didn't happen. He does this a with a bit more historical detail than does Clive Cussler (whom I also enjoy) with his Dirk Pitt novels.

And I have already bought another one to read. It seems like Berry can turn these things out about as fast as I can read them. GoodJob!

This is my first Steve Berry/Cotton Malone novel and I was not entirely knocked out by it. The story was intriguing, and the angle of reviving Alexander the Great's conquests in the modern world was certainly a fresh perspective in a geopolitical genre. But the end almost seemed a bit anticlimactic and wrapped up a bit too neatly for my tastes. The HIV/AIDS cure aspect was certainly an interesting subplot but truth be told I saw that coming after reading the prologue.

I understand other "Cotton Malone" novels are ranked better and might be persuaded to check out any one of those but I would have a hard time recommending to anyone looking for something with a lot of meat to the story.

The narrative gets lost in this 540 page novel. Berry bounces all over the place, pausing now and then to deliver pages of descriptive history, science and local color...which mostly distract from the read. The book is also populated with so many characters I found myself not caring about any of them, heros and villains alike. I tried skimming it but even that was too much work, so I put it down short of 200 pages.

Cotton strikes again! I have been a fan of steve berry novels for awhile now and have read all of his books (except for the romanov prophecy - don't know why i keep meaning to pick it up) This is by far one of my ultimate favs from him, b/c i was so interested in the evolution of both Cotton and Cassiopeia and Alexander the Great is such a interesting backdrop for the both of them. Berry has a wonderful way of weaving history into current events and making you think......it's possible......I like how he has "writer's notes: separating fact from fiction" at the end of each of his novels, it shows a reverence for the history used to create the story (which i think most authors take for granted). Thanks Mr Berry!

If you're familiar with Steve Berry, you know that there's no way possible to read his novel and be bored. His books start moving, twisting and turning and just don't stop. In fact, in this book, one of the bad guys changes sides so many times; you're never really sure exactly where it all ends up... even when the book is finished and the problems & plotline solved.

The premise of this book is that Alexander the Great's tomb is within reach and the good guys are out to stop the bad guys from getting to the tomb and getting the goods to rule the world. Well, not exactly, just kill the world, but hey it's close enough in fictionland. The major evil-doer is obsessed with Alexander the Great, his mummy and the draught said to cure anything that ails the person who might drink it.

Cotton Malone is paired up with Cassiopeia Vitt to solve a world class problem. This time Cassiopeia has the complex problem and Malone is more or less pressed into service by his friend and mentor Thorvaldsen. The adventure starts in Copenhagen, but quickly runs to Venice and then to the Fictional Central Asian Federation (think Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan) and a far western portion of China.

The twists and turns in this book are truly amazing. Seriously, following the plot line from one place to another is truly exhausting. Berry has out done himself; I think he's taken the running all over the planet to a whole new extreme. The great thing about this is that so much is going on; the reader can't possibly solve the riddle. The bad thing about this is that there's so much going on that the reader risks losing interest in the whole thing. I found, in several places, that I simply began not to care what was going on at all and just reading to get finished with the whole thing.

If you like novels with a bit of adventure, you'll like this book. Keep in mind, though, that it's long and it's action packed and you may find yourself wondering just what the heck is going on at more than one point in the escapade. I gave this book 3 stars, not because it's not good, but because there's just too much going on all the time.

I bought this because I was intrigued by the book description, but I found the book very difficult to get into and kept getting stuck in the first 6 chapters. After about seven attempts I just gave up and put the book to the side. I'm not sure if the characters just didn't have the depth I was looking for or if they were not interesting enough to me...or perhaps it was the writing style. I am sure the book would have been a great read if I could just have gotten through it more. I read a whole genre of books so it's not because I'm drawn to just one subject - this was just not an easy read.

Could not put this one down. Probably my favorite Cotton Malone series book so far. It was awesome. He just keeps getting better.

I like to read. I like fiction. I even like the suspense / conspiracy genre to which this book aspires. However, I can emphatically say that this is the worst book I have read in the last 12 months. Too many characters with ridiculous names, and no character development. Too many flashbacks and flashforwards. Too much jumping between locations. Completely disjointed plot that makes no sense....a ruler of a new republic tries to find Alexander the Greats tomb by using Elephant medallions to locate an ancient cure so that she can poison her enemies. The "good" guys who allow museums to burn down to catch the "bad" guys.....no wait...the "bad" guys are actually "good", no they are "bad" after all...Unlike some of the other reviewers, I did finish the book, hoping that it would get better...it didn't. Save your money and your time.

Wonderful entertainment. A definite successor to Clive Cussler. Well written. Descriptive passages about the country as like a travelog. Good characterizations. Great middle-aged hero.

I just spent the last few days reading this book. Like his others it blended fact with fiction creating a great story, with familiar characters. As with everything the people do things that no sane person would do, these few things are easy to overlook. Overall great quick story making wish I knew a lot more about history.