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The King's Deception: A Novel (Cotton Malone, Band 8) - Softcover

Buch 8 von 20: Cotton Malone

Berry, Steve

 
9780345526557: The King's Deception: A Novel (Cotton Malone, Band 8)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0345526554 ISBN 13: 9780345526557
Verlag: Ballantine Books, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This Cotton Malone adventure blends gripping contemporary political intrigue, Tudor treachery, and high-octane thrills into one riveting novel of suspense.
 
Cotton Malone and his fifteen-year-old son, Gary, are headed to Europe. As a favor to his former boss at the Justice Department, Malone agrees to escort a teenage fugitive back to England. But after he is greeted at gunpoint in London, both the fugitive and Gary disappear, and Malone learns that he’s stumbled into a high-stakes diplomatic showdown—an international incident fueled by geopolitical gamesmanship and shocking Tudor secrets.
 
At its heart is the Libyan terrorist convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103, who is set to be released by Scottish authorities for “humanitarian reasons.” An outraged American government objects, but nothing can persuade the British to intervene.
 
Except, perhaps, Operation King’s Deception.
 
Run by the CIA, the operation aims to solve a centuries-old mystery, one that could rock Great Britain to its royal foundations.
 
Blake Antrim, the CIA operative in charge of King’s Deception, is hunting for the spark that could rekindle a most dangerous fire, the one thing that every Irish national has sought for generations: a legal reason why the English must leave Northern Ireland. The answer is a long-buried secret that calls into question the legitimacy of the entire forty-five-year reign of Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, who completed the conquest of Ireland and seized much of its land. But Antrim also has a more personal agenda, a twisted game of revenge in which Gary is a pawn. With assassins, traitors, spies, and dangerous disciples of a secret society closing in, Malone is caught in a lethal bind. To save Gary he must play one treacherous player against another—and only by uncovering the incredible truth can he hope to prevent the shattering consequences of the King’s Deception.

Don’t miss Steve Berry’s novella The Tudor Plot and an excerpt from The Lincoln Myth in the back of the book.

Praise for The King’s Deception
 
“A Dan Brown-ian secular conspiracy about the Virgin Queen driving nonstop international intrigue.”—Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Steve Berry
 
“Berry raises this genre’s stakes.”—The New York Times
 
“I love this guy.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child
 
“Forget Clancy and Cussler. When it comes to this genre, there is simply no one better.”—The Providence Journal

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Steve Berry is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of The Lincoln Myth, The King’s Deception, The Columbus Affair, The Jefferson Key, The Emperor’s Tomb, The Paris Vendetta, The Charlemagne Pursuit, The Venetian Betrayal, The Alexandria Link, The Templar Legacy, The Third Secret, The Romanov Prophecy, and The Amber Room. His books have been translated into 40 languages with more than 18,000,000 copies in 51 countries.
 
History lies at the heart of every Steve Berry novel. It’s this passion, one he shares with his wife, Elizabeth, that led them to create History Matters, a foundation dedicated to historic preservation. Since 2009 Steve and Elizabeth have traveled across the country to save endangered historic treasures, raising money via lectures, receptions, galas, luncheons, dinners, and their popular writers’ workshops. To date, nearly 2,500 students have attended those workshops. In 2012 their work was recognized by the American Library Association, which named Steve the first spokesman for National Preservation Week. He was also appointed by the Smithsonian Board of Regents to serve on the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board to help promote and support the libraries in their mission to provide information in all forms to scientists, curators, scholars, students, and the public at large. He has received the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award and the 2013 Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers. His novel The Columbus Affair earned him the Anne Frank Human Writes Award, and his historic preservation work merited the 2013 Silver Bullet from International Thriller Writers.
 
Steve Berry was born and raised in Georgia, graduating from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University. He was a trial lawyer for 30 years and held elective office for 14 of those years. He is a founding member of International Thriller Writers—a group of more than 2,600 thriller writers from around the world—and served three years as its co-president.
 
For more information, visit www.steveberry.org.

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9780345526540|excerpt

Berry / THE KING'S DECEPTION

One

london

friday, november 21

6:25 pm

Cotton Malone stepped up to the Customs window at Heathrow Airport and presented two passports—his own and his son Gary’s. Positioned between himself and the glass-enclosed counter, however, stood a problem.

Fifteen-year-old Ian Dunne.

“This one doesn’t have a passport,” he told the attendant, then explained who he was and what he was doing. A brief call to somebody led to verbal approval for Ian to reenter the country.

Which didn’t surprise Malone.

He assumed that since the Central Intelligence Agency wanted the boy in England they’d make the necessary arrangements.

He was tired from the long flight, though he’d caught a few hours of sleep. His knee still hurt from the kick Ian had delivered in Atlanta, before trying to flee from that airport. Luckily, his own fifteen-year-old, Gary, had been quick to tackle the pesky Scot before he’d escaped the concourse.

Favors for friends.

Always a problem.

This one for his former boss, Stephanie Nelle, at the Magellan Billet.

It’s the CIA, she’d told him. Langley had called directly. Somehow they were aware Malone was in Georgia and wanted him to escort the boy back to London, handing him over to the Metropolitan Police. After that he and Gary could head on to Copenhagen. In return, they’d received first-class tickets all the way home to Denmark.

Not bad. His own were coach.

Four days ago he’d flown to Georgia for two reasons. The State Bar of Georgia required twelve hours of continuing legal education from all of its licensed lawyers. Though he’d retired from the navy and the Magellan Billet, he still kept his law license active, which meant he had to satisfy the annual education mandate. Last year he’d attended a sanctioned event in Brussels, a three-day meeting on multinational property rights. This year he’d chosen a seminar in Atlanta on international law. Not the most exciting way to spend two days, but he’d worked too hard for that degree to simply allow his ticket to lapse.

The second reason was personal.

Gary had asked to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with him. School was out and his ex-wife, Pam, thought an overseas trip a good idea. He’d wondered why she was so reticent, and found out last week when Pam called his bookshop in Copenhagen.

“Gary’s angry,” she said. “He’s asking a lot of questions.”

“Ones you don’t want to answer?”

“Ones I’m going to have a tough time answering.”

Which was an understatement. Six months ago she’d revealed a harsh truth to him during another call from Atlanta to Denmark. Gary was not his natural son. Instead, the boy was the product of an affair some sixteen years past.

Now she’d told Gary that truth, and his son was not happy. For Malone, the news had been crushing. He could only imagine what it had been for Gary.

“Neither one of us was a saint back then, Cotton.”

She liked to remind him of that reality—as if somehow he’d forgotten that their marriage supposedly ended because of his lapses.

“Gary wants to know about his birth father.”

“So do I.”

She’d told him nothing about the man, and refused his requests for information.

“He has no involvement here,” she said. “He’s a total stranger to all of us. Just like the women you were with have nothing to do with this. I don’t want to open that door. Ever.”

“Why did you tell Gary about this? We agreed to do that together, when the time was right.”

“I know. I know. My mistake. But it had to be done.”

“Why?”

She did not answer him. But he could imagine the reason. She liked to be in control. Of everything. Only she wasn’t in control here. Nobody was, actually.

“He hates me,” she said. “I see it in his eyes.”

“You turned the boy’s life upside down.”

“He told me today that he might want to live with you.”

He had to say, “You know I would never take advantage of this.”

“I know that. This is my fault. Not yours. He’s so angry. Maybe a week with you would help ease some of that.”

He’d come to realize that he didn’t love Gary one drop less because he carried no Malone genes. But he’d be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t bothered by the fact. Six months had passed and the truth still hurt. Why? He wasn’t sure. He hadn’t been faithful to Pam while in the navy. He was young and stupid and got caught. But now he knew that she’d had an affair of her own. Never mentioned at the time. Would she have strayed if he hadn’t?

He doubted it. Not her nature.

So he wasn’t blameless for the current mess.

He and Pam had been divorced for over a year, but only back in October had they made their peace. Everything that happened with the Library of Alexandria changed things between them.

For the better.

But now this.

One boy in his charge was angry and confused.

The other seemed to be a delinquent.

Stephanie had told him some. Ian Dunne had been born in Scotland. Father unknown. Mother abandoned him early. He was sent to London to live with an aunt and drifted in and out of her home, finally running away. He had an arrest record—petty theft, trespassing, loitering. The CIA wanted him because a month ago one of their people was shoved, or jumped, into the path of an oncoming Underground train. Dunne was there, in Oxford Circus. Witnesses say he might even have stolen something from the dead man. So they needed to talk to him.

Not good, but also not his concern.

In a few minutes his favor for Stephanie Nelle would be over, then he and Gary would catch their connecting flight to Copenhagen and enjoy the week, depending of course on how many uncomfortable questions his son might want answered. The hitch was that the Denmark flight departed not from Heathrow, but Gatwick, London’s other major airport, an hour’s ride east. Their departure time was several hours away, so it wasn’t a problem. He would just need to convert some dollars to pounds and hire a taxi.

They left Customs and claimed their luggage.

Both he and Gary had packed light.

“The police going to take me?” Ian asked.

“That’s what I’m told.”

“What will happen to him?” Gary asked.

He shrugged. “Hard to say.”

And it was. Especially with the CIA involved.

He shouldered his bag and led both boys out of the baggage area.

“Can I have my things?” Ian asked.

When Ian had been turned over to him in Atlanta, he’d been given a plastic bag that contained a Swiss Army knife with all the assorted attachments, a pewter necklace with a religious medal attached, a pocket Mace container, some silver shears, and two paperback books with their covers missing.

Ivanhoe and Le Morte D’Arthur.

Their brown edges were water-stained, the bindings veined with thick white creases. Both were thirty-plus-year-old printings. Stamped on the title page was any old books, with an address in Piccadilly Circus, London. He employed a similar branding of inventory, his simply announcing cotton malone, bookseller, højbro plads, copenhagen. The items in the plastic bag all belonged to Ian, seized by Customs when they took him into custody at Miami...

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Verlag
Ballantine Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2014
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345526554
ISBN 13 
9780345526557
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
640
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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