.com A Letter from Author Steve Berry Cotton Malone is known for his overseas exploits. A former-Justice Department operative, who can't stay out of trouble, he's found adventures in all parts of Europe (The Templar Legacy, The Paris Vendetta), Central Asia (The Venetian Betrayal), Antarctica (The Charlemagne Pursuit), the Middle East (The Alexandria Link), and China (The Emperor's Tomb). But he's never had an American adventure. Until now. The Jefferson Key was great fun to research. My wife Elizabeth and I traveled to New York City; Washington, D.C.; Bath, North Carolina; Monticello; and Richmond, Virginia. Monticello was particularly interesting since the terrific novelist, Katherine Neville--author of The Eight and The Fire--played host. Katherine serves on the estate's board of directors and she led us on a behind-the-scenes tour that helped formulate a number of scenes that would later appear in the book. We spent a wonderful day there, wandering the halls and staircases, snapping pictures, checking out every nook and cranny. In Richmond, we stayed at The Jefferson, a grand hotel that also makes an appearance in the story. Bath, North Carolina was similarly intriguing. Three hundred years ago, Bath was a hotbed for Atlantic pirates, a bustling port and a ship building center. Its location, on a quiet inlet of the Pamlico River, not far from open ocean, made it ideal for both. And though it's now a sleepy village of about 300 residents, delving into its colonial and pre-colonial past was exciting. After all, pirates are fascinating--but they don't match the Hollywood stereotype. The real thing is even better, and The Jefferson Key deals with the real thing. The research for this novel spanned 18 months, which is normal for my books. Along the way, we uncovered a secret cipher originally possessed by Thomas Jefferson; concocted a mystery for Andrew Jackson; and created a centuries-old document envisioned by the Founding Fathers themselves. It was fun exploring American history, especially the Constitution, which forms a huge part of this plot. With every book there's a challenge to describe the story in as few words as possible. For this one, we came up with this: Four United States presidents have been assassinated--in 1865, 1881, 1901, and 1963--each murder seemingly unrelated. But what if those presidents were all killed for the same reason--a clause in the United States Constitution, contained within Article 1, Section 8--that would shock Americans. Got you interested? I hope so. Enjoy The Jefferson Key. One of the most spellbinding and ingenious openings in all of thrillerdom.David Baldacci A superbly paced novel of mystery and adventure . . . [Berrys] love of history resonates throughout this lively and imaginative tale.The Denver PostThe Jefferson Key is Steve Berry at his very best. . . . This book will raise his reputation to a whole new level.The Huffington PostIngeniously plotted . . . Berry offers plenty of twists and vivid action scenes in a feast of historical imagination.Publishers Weekly (starred review)Fast and furious.BooklistThe Jefferson Key starts with a bang and holds the reader in its grip until the last page: fascinating American history, up-to-the-minute politics, pulse-pounding action.Vince FlynnThe Constitution . . . secret codes . . . loads of history . . . and pirates! What else does anyone need? The Jefferson Key wont just haunt your nightsitll haunt your life. Cotton Malone is coming back to the scariest place of all: home.Brad MeltzerAbout the AuthorSteve Berry is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of The Lincoln Myth, The Kings Deception, The Columbus Affair, The Jefferson Key, The Emperors 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. Its 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 Writersa group of more than 2,600 thriller writers from around the worldand served three years as its co-president. For more information, visit www.steveberry.org.From the Hardcover edition. where can i download ebooks for free without signing up The Jefferson Key (with bonus short story The Devil's Gold): A Novel (Cotton Malone)
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Starts Silly, Gets BetterBy StoneyThe following is technically a spoiler, but is probably essential to avoid getting totally confused by the many virtually distinguishable characters and the overly intricate plot:BACKGROUNDA consortium (called The Commonwealth) of four privateer companies received Letters of Mark from George Washington, essentially providing them (and their heirs) immunity against U.S. law, for actions against enemies of the United States. As the years progressed, the Commonwealth became more of a private intelligent agency, specializing in inflicting economic damage. Recently, they had nearly bankrupted on Dubai, nominally a U.S. ally, enraging the CIA, which engaged the assistance the IRS to punish the Commonwealth. When U.S. President Danny Daniels refused to help the Commonwealth, they attempted to assassinate him. This action had precedence. President Andrew Jackson (who had little respect for the Supreme Court, any laws, or treaties) attempted to extort concessions from the Commonwealth, they had attempted to assassinate him. Jackson retaliated by physically removing and hiding the pages from the Congressional Record, leaving no evidence that Congress had authorized the Letters of Mark.IMPLAUSIBLE SETUPUnfortunately, the story opens with the convoluted implausible scene in which long-retired former US intelligence agent Cotton Malone is lured to a NYC hotel room, just in time to thwart an assassination attempt by automated weapons and rockets from the hotel room--with the secondary purpose maybe having Malone killed by the Secret Service. Every aspect of the scene is beyond implausibility, and I suspect ruined the novel for most readers before they got into it. Suspension-of-disbelief is an essential part of many action novels, and resembles a rubber band. If the author stretches the rubber band beyond the breaking point on the first page, readers instantly cease to be an audience, and instead become annoyed critics, reading for shortcomings--and they find plenty. Those of us who are Steve Berry fans expect him to fumble the ball at some point, and are more willing to cut him some slack, because he usually comes through, because he usually plays a great game, despite the fumbles. Although the opening is awful, this is actually one of Steve Berry's best novels.DEVELOPMENTDaniels essentially assigns Cotton Malone and his girlfriend Casseopea Vitt to find Stephanie Nelle (who has been kidnapped) and the missing pages from the Congressional Record---even though Cotton has been living in Denmark for 5 years or so, and has not been employed by the U.S. for at least that long, and Casseopea is some sort of unspecified non- (maybe even anti-) American agent. Complicating things, yet another U.S. intelligence agency, the NIA, is playing both sides, working for and against the Commonwealth. Rouge former agent Jonathon Wyatt is similarly working for the NIA and on his own, and is betrayed by the NIA.OTHER SIGNIFICANT ORGANIZATIONS AND CHARACTERSMagellan Billet (a U.S. intelligence agency)Director: Stephanie NelleFormer Agent: Cotton MaloneNIA director: Andrea CarbonellNIA agent: Scott Parrot--intermediary with the CommonwealthCommonwealth Members: Quinton Hale, Bolton, Cogburn, KirchoffHale's girlfriend: Shirley KaiserCommonwealth agent ("Quartermaster"): Clifford KnoxWhite HousePresident: Danny DanielsFirst Lady: Pamela DanielsCheif of Staff: Edwin DavisEVALUATIONIf you can keep track of the preceding cast of characters, the "Jefferson Key" is a fast-paced engrossing story, with interesting tidbits about American History. Unfortunately, the author makes the story difficult to follow, by fragmenting the storyline. Chapters are short with storylines abruptly cut off--often in the middle of a sentence. Usually another storyline abruptly continues, but the reader doesn't know who the current characters are, and cannot remember where that particular storyline was last chopped off. This is especially a problem listening to the audiobook version, where one doesn't have physical chapter breaks to warn of the change.The author exacerbates the problem by his exceedingly poor choice of character names which do nothing to distinguish the characters. For example, it might be camp to call the bad guys "Boris" and "Wilhelm"---but at least the readers would be able to identify them. Stephanie Nelle/Cassiopea Vitt---what's the difference?---similarly uncommon, same cadence spoken out-loud, almost the same number of syllables. Jonathon Wyatt/Quinton Hale/Clifford Knox---what's difference?---similarly upper-class Anglo-Saxon, same cadence spoken out-loud, almost the same number of syllables. Even "Davis" is sometimes a first name. So when you re-encounter "Davis" after a break of many chapters, is that "Somebody Davis?" or "Davis Somebody"? For the most part, the reader cannot even identify which names are first names and which are last names---much less associate the pairs of names with particular characters.POP QUIZ: (No peeking at the preceding paragraphs) Is Bolton a different character from Cotton? Is Quinton a different character from Daniels? Is Parrot a different character from Scott?. Is Davis different from Daniels? Is Wyatt a different character from Jonathon? Is Nelle a different character from Stephanie?Key: x=no, z=yes. Answers: z z x z x z. Click on Stoney just below the product title to see my other reviews, or leave a comment to ask a question.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. 5 star rating based on it being a good action novelBy Bright5 star rating based on it being a good action novel. It's a solid read, but not to be confused with the greatest fiction in history. Thoroughly enjoyed it. I've started reading the short stories first, although I don't know that the short story here really matters in the timeline of the story. It just happened to be before the novel storyline. I started reading Steve Berry on the suggestion of a friend, and have enjoyed everything I've read so far. If you like the suspense/thriller novel, these are definitely worth reading.5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Gives New Meaning to "Page Turner!"By J. NorthI like the premise but had to give up in frustration.I understand that it's an accepted technique to end a chapter with some dramatic event, a "cliffhanger" so to speak, then switch to some other scene on the very next page to somewhat artificially accentuate the suspense. But really, Berry tends to do this after what seems to be only a page or two of narrative. (I was reading in on the Kindle; hard to tell how many actual pages.) You just start a new chapter, a character gets out of a car, somebody shoots at him and BANG; next chapter in a different locale with different characters. They have an exchange a page of dialogue, and one says something like "I've got something to show you." and BANG; next chapter with entirely different set of characters and scenario. (I'm exaggerating only a little, really!)Too much switching between scenes involving too many different characters. Give me a protagonist to care about, maybe two, and I'm happy. This is precisely why I gave up on Stephen King way back when. After his early successes he started pounding out his 10 lb. epics, with dozens of characters and storylines.This is all subjective, of course. Your mileage may vary.