The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry (#3 Cotton Malone Series)

I equate my like of Steve Berry's Cotton Malone Series to my enjoyment as a child of the Nancy Drew books. The Venetian Betrayal is the third book in this series and I am still hooked. The first book in the series is The Templar Legacy and after reading it I began to realize how much I could enjoy "adult" mystery/ thriller novels. It had conspiracy, religious history, world history, government assassinations... this series has it all. The second book is The Alexandria Link. While this one was good, I wasn't as into it as the first or the third. Since The Venetian Betrayal is the one I just finished reading I will focus on it. Once again Berry delivers... he brings back all of the main characters from the previous two books and creates a plot that I found so unpredictable and complex. When I was only 1/4 of the way through the book I felt like it was about to conclude and be done... I couldn't imagine what else could happen... yet Berry kept adding to it and bringing in more and more elements to complicate things, which I really appreciated. I was constantly on my toes. The novel focuses around a new nation, the Central Asian Federation, which is run by Irina Zovastina, a very powerful ruler with her own agenda. She is an expert on Alexander the Great and his death and in the beginning of the book you learn that she is after something called Elephant Medallions which were from the time of Alexander, but it is a while until you learn why. Since I don't want to ruin the book for anyone I'll just say that Cotton Malone and several other characters try to stop her and end up in the middle of something bigger than they could have ever imagined. This book gives you danger, political corruptness, love, friendship, fighting, death, sickness... everything. I'm so excited to read the next book (although I will probably read a different genre of book first... I like to break it up) and I'm so glad that have I many to go in the series before I have to wait for him to write another one!