"The Venetian Betrayal"

by Steve Berry

By now I’ve read most of Berry’s novels, having first reviewed one here a couple of years ago. I was initially taken with his adoption of the Dan Brown novelistic approach – modern adventure drama surrounding historical themes, and all of his works I’m familiar with follow that plot schema. The typical scenario involves a conspiring evil or amoral group attempting to confiscate, exploit, eliminate, or otherwise control a world-shaking historical event which, for one reason or another, is shrouded in secrecy; the good guys and gals use James Bondish methods to thwart the baddies.

In his “Alexandria Link”, the secret is an ancient mistranslation of scripture regarding the location of the land deeded by God to Abraham. In “The Romanov Prophecy” there is the mystery of the possible Czarists descendents (hint – the legitimate heir to the Russian throne is a cornball lawyer in North Carolina. Go figure). “The Third Secret” involves the attempt by the Roman Catholic magesterium to suppress the last revelation given to the three kids in a visitation by the Virgin Mary in the early 20th century. The Catholic Church is also given a less-than positive view in “The Templar Legacy”. Etc., etc.

Berry continues a mildly anti-Papist trend in the novel under review, but here the church’s involvement is tangential, directed more toward unsavory political associations.

The historical issue in “The Venetian Betrayal” (copyrighted in 2007) is the final resting place of Alexander the Great, and its connection with a miracle anti-viral (specifically anti HIV) pharmaceutical substance. As one might expect, one of the evil entities is a pharmaceutical cartel along with the usual, for Berry, insidious bunch of world power brokers. In addition, though, he gives us an especially despicable political despot villain, the leader of an Asian power made up of all the ‘—stans’ which were formerly Russian provinces. This tyrant’s mode of operation is exemplified by a novel method of execution – wrongdoers are bound between two trees which are forcefully bent toward each other until their tops nearly reach the ground. Cutting the ropes holding the trees leads to instantaneous split personalities.

The kicker here, however, is that this leader is a decidedly unlovable woman, and the reader, at least this one, becomes so eager to see how she ends up that there is a temptation to skim to the ending.

The hero is a recurring Berry figure, Cotton Malone, currently a book store operator with a previous life as a secret agent. In typical Berry fashion, however, there is a confusing cast of other characters, many with mixed loyalties, and it is a bit difficult to remember just who is who.

Also the plot progress seems a bit erratic, moving from location to location and action to action quickly, only to have periods of drag and plodding. On the whole, though, I found this to be a fun read for adventure lovers, especially for us who enjoy deep, dark ancient secrets and mysteries, but it is certainly more male than female oriented.

Reviewed by Ken West

"The Alexandria Link"

By Steve Berry

I first read the author’s "The Amber Room" which didn’t capture my interest all that much. It involved a modern search for artistic treasure stolen from Russia by Nazi Germany and secreted away.

His latest novel, "The Alexandria Link", although it has similar elements of historically-oriented speculation, is much more fast-moving and exciting in my opinion.

As a starting point, Berry tops Brown’s "DaVinci Code" (a very similar sort of fiction) by taking us two thousand years before the time of Jesus. His first thesis is that, through mistranslation and connivance, the scriptural covenant in which God grants Abraham and his progeny deed to the land once called Palestine has been erroneously recorded; the “promised land” is actually hundreds of miles away from present day Israel in the wastelands of Arabia. The second major plot element is that the proof of this can be found in the original documents of the Septuagint written in the “old Hebrew” language. The third thesis is that these documents, cached in the great library of Alexandria, still exist; a secret order of “guardians” has preserved much of the material from that destroyed institution for over a thousand years in a hidden repository in the mountains of Sinai.

Obvious severe instability in the Middle East and the world in general will result when and if the inconsistencies of our modern scripture are revealed. The Jews are not justified in holding the land of Israel, the “real” promised land is located in an extremely sacred area for Islam, the Christian adherence to the Old Testament will be shown as faulty, and world economic and political upheaval will inevitably occur.

The cast of characters in the novel is rich. We have at least two secret societies with ancient roots, a powerful cabal, interested only in profit, headed by just one of the book’s villains, Israeli and Arabian special assassin groups, an amazingly versatile killer-villain, amoral politicians in the highest ranks (including the U.S. president, the Attorney General, and the Vice President), and several good guy/gal types including the Bond-like protagonist, Malone.

The book jumps from setting to setting and character to character throughout, but, to the author’s credit, this is not irksome. I found myself eagerly following most of the plot journeys.

However, the ending is a bit too compacted and unrealistically structured for my taste. Have any of you noticed the same sort of thing in recent fiction – almost as if the writer is tired of the thing and wants to wrap it up as quickly as possible?

Review by Ken West