The Venetian Betrayal (Cotton Malone)

[Steve Berry] has a genuine feel for the factual gaps that give history its tantalizing air of the unknown.�”The New York Times Book Review. After narrowly escaping incineration in a devastating fire that consumes a Danish museum, Cotton Malone”former Justice Department agent turned rare-book dealer”learns from his friend, the beguiling adventurer Cassiopeia Vitt, that the blaze was neither an accident nor an isolated incident. As part of a campaign of arson intended to mask a far more diabolical design, buildings across Europe are being devoured by infernos of unnatural strength. Born from the ashes is a new Eastern European nation whose ruthless leader will soon draw Cotton into an intense geopolitical chess game against a shadowy cabal of power brokers. The prize lies buried with the mummified remains of Alexander the Great”in a tomb lost to the ages for  more than two thousand years. Trekking from Denmark . to Venice to Central Asia, Cotton and Cassiopeia are determined to solve an ancient puzzle whose solution . could destroy or save millions of people”depending on who finds the lost tomb first. There's nothing tastier than a globe-spanning mystery. . . . Berry's books excel at bringing out fascinating tidbits of history.� ”Richmond Times-Dispatch