The 14th Colony

January 25, 2016
Bestseller Berry’s 11th Cotton Malone thriller (after 2015’s The Patriot Threat) offers a clever variation on the theme of racing against the clock to avert national disaster. In 1982 in Vatican City, Ronald Reagan and John Paul II have a private meeting, in which they plot the end of the Soviet Union by concerted political, economic, and spiritual pressure. In the present day, the impending end of the administration of President Danny Daniels also signals the closing of the Magellan Billet, a covert intelligence unit within the Justice Department. Meanwhile, the unit’s leader and Malone’s old boss, Stephanie Nelle, sends him on what should be a simple reconnaissance mission to Russia, but, of course, it isn’t. The story line expands to include missing nukes, a society formed by U.S. army officers after the Revolutionary War, and a dying man’s cryptic reference to the “zero amendment.” Richer characterizations and more thoughtful suspense elevate this above similar 24-like stories. Author tour. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House.

March 1, 2016

A new U.S. president is about to be inaugurated, and the incoming administration has disbanded the Magellan Billet agency and fired its head. But director Stephanie Nelle has one last mission for the unit and Cotton Malone: to track down a dangerous former KGB agent still clinging to the old ideals. What seems like a simple reconnaissance mission uncovers dormant secrets from the Cold War and a constitutional loophole that threaten the very foundation of the American government. VERDICT Once again, Berry (The Patriot Threat) mixes history and suspense in a high-energy, action-packed thriller. Fans will not be disappointed as he delivers another complex story highlighted by Malone's superhuman ability to survive anything and chase the bad guys to the ends of the earth. [See Prepub Alert, 10/19/15.]--Sandra Knowles, South Carolina State Lib., Columbia

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2016
There's a new president in the White House, and you know what they say about new brooms. The administration's housecleaning involves one particularly interesting initiative: closing down the Magellan Billet, the Justice Department unit that focuses on cases with an international element. But, first, Cotton Malone, the agency's top operative, has one final mission: to find a notoriousallegedly retiredKGB agent. Not a simple mission, to be sure, and soon it becomes vastly more complicated when Cotton uncovers a world-spanning conspiracy that reaches back into history. The Malone novels are formulaic, sure, but it's a solid formula that always delivers the goods: a resourceful hero, a modern-day story involving historical secrets, and plenty of action. Series fans won't be disappointed.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A major six-figure marketing campaign and the coveted national one-day laydown suggest that, come April, The 14th Colony will be a ubiquitous presence in the reading public's consciousness.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

November 15, 2015

Shot down over Siberia, Berry stalwart Cotton Malone must face former KGB agent Aleksandr Zorin, who's planning to exploit uncertainty surrounding the forthcoming U.S. inauguration. With a one-day laydown on April 5.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2016
Cotton Malone of the Magellan Billet, the Justice Department's elite intelligence group, once again yanks the U.S. back from the precipice of annihilation. Berry's (The Patriot Threat, 2015, etc.) modus operandi is always all-action, and here, his stalwart hero, Malone, a Top Gun pilot-turned-secret operative, has been dispatched to Siberia by Billet chief Stephanie Nelle on orders from lame-duck President Danny Daniels. Daniels is doing a favor for an unstable Russian government, which is worried about rumors of former KGB operatives with access to suitcase-sized nuclear weapons. Those bombs were hidden away when a hard-line Soviet premier needed a response to Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II's plan to destabilize the Soviet Union. Malone discovers that the weapons and the plan to use them are real. Daniels must respond in the last few hours of his administration. Magellan characters remain stock types, nuanced with hints of romance as Malone's estranged love, Cassiopea Vitt, returns and Nelle awaits the retiring president's divorce. The primary bad guy, one-time KGB superagent Aleksandr Zorin, is believable, a once-loyal apparatchik disillusioned by the kleptocrats' hold on Russia. There's a trail of shootouts, bombs, fires, and hand-to-hand combat from Siberia's exotic Lake Baikal to Prince Edward Island, refuge of a sleeper agent, to Washington, D.C's corridors of power. The plot is familiar--good guys chase bad guys to avert major crises--but Berry this time complicates the scenario with a second storyline. It involves The Society of Cincinnati, a fraternity founded after the Revolutionary War by and for the male descendants of veterans. How that organization's longtime desire for a 14th colony ties into Russian resentment is left for Malone and his Magellen cohorts to dig up. Longer than it needs to be but Berry gunfights his way entertainingly enough to the save-the-world conclusion of this formulaic yarn.

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