Following this year’s The Bishop’s Pawn, which explored details around the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone is set to take on a dangerous group known as the Knights of Malta in the author’s forthcoming new novel, The Malta Exchange.
The 14th book in his #1 New York Times bestselling series, Berry’s next book mixes a Dan Brown-like conspiracy with the kind of historical fiction that only Steve Berry can deliver.
A deadly race for the Vatican’s oldest secret fuels New York Times bestseller Steve Berry’s latest international Cotton Malone thriller.
The pope is dead. A conclave to select his replacement is about to begin. Cardinals are beginning to arrive at the Vatican, but one has fled Rome for Malta in search of a document that dates back to the 4th century and Constantine the Great.
Former Justice Department operative, Cotton Malone, is at Lake Como, Italy, on the trail of legendary letters between Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini that disappeared in 1945 and could re-write history. But someone else seems to be after the same letters and, when Malone obtains then loses them, he’s plunged into a hunt that draws the attention of the legendary Knights of Malta.
The knights have existed for over nine hundred years, the only warrior-monks to survive into modern times. Now they are a global humanitarian organization, but within their ranks lurks trouble — the Secreti — an ancient sect intent on affecting the coming papal conclave. With the help of Magellan Billet agent Luke Daniels, Malone races the rogue cardinal, the knights, the Secreti, and the clock to find what has been lost for centuries. The final confrontation culminates behind the walls of the Vatican where the election of the next pope hangs in the balance.
While The Bishop’s Pawn was a huge success and featured one of Berry’s most provocative endings yet, fans will no doubt be excited to catch back up with Cotton Malone in real-time. Berry’s 2016 novel, The Lost Order, was widely regarded as his best work yet and featured several series-altering twists. Those plotlines are expected to pick up, at least in part, when The Malta Exchange hits bookstores on March 19th, 2019.
Praised as “one of today’s finest book reviewers” by New York Times bestselling author Gayle Lynds, Ryan Steck (“The Godfather of the thriller genre” — Ben Coes) has “quickly established himself as the authority on mysteries and thrillers” (Author A.J. Tata). He currently lives in Southwest Michigan with his wife and their six children.