My First Steve Berry

On one of my trips, my fellow passenger was a hedge fund manager from Idaho (never got his name). His wife stuffed this book into his bag and he highly recommended it. I reserved the eBook from Seattle Public Library and was glad that it came through before my recent business trip to Texas. The flight back was not long enough. I couldn’t put it down.

(How is that Seattle Public Library has a better interface for eBooks than Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara County Library?)

The Jefferson Key is the latest of the Cotton Malone series (book 7) by Steve Berry, a best-selling author. I learned more about US presidential assassinations from this fiction than history books. Clearly, there were four presidents gunned down in US history. According to this book, a single organization, the Commonwealth, a band of privateers or legalized pirates, was behind all four. Berry’s research reminded me of Michael Crichton’s Pirate Latitudes.

I did not know that this was the 7th of a series and it did not matter. The book is a fast-paced page turner with a good plot and excellent research. Strangely, the minor characters were more vivid and in-depth than the major ones.

I wouldn’t say this is a literary classic that depicts human flaws, deep, or thought provoking. Steve Berry knows his craft like Stephen King, Michael Crichton, David Baldacci, or Mary Higgins Clark. I read all of them, and wouldn’t mind toting one of their works during a vacation, quiet weekend, or business trip.

And you should to.

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