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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
debdatta's review against another edition
4.0
This is my first time reading a book from the Cotton Malone series even though I have heard about them for the longest of times.
Cotton Malone is a retired agent for the Department of Justice who is now a proud owner of a bookstore. While taking a trip with his teenage son, he agrees to escort a teenage fugitive back to London as a favour to an old connection. When they arrive at the London Airport, it doesn’t take long for things to go horribly wrong. Before anyone has a chance to react, Malone’s son and the fugitive goes missing. Now Malone finds himself involved in a case that revolves around one of the biggest Tudor secret and also is connected to the release of a Libyan terrorist from a Scottish prison.
I am no expert in world history. So, I love reading historical fiction as they give me a chance to research and learn about the topics covered in the novel. In this case I had a chance to look into the Tudor Dynasty – and more specifically into King Henry VIII and his daughter Queen Elizabeth I. It was an amazing experience to then come back to Steve Berry’s work of fiction involving these characters.
Cotton Malone is a character who is easy to love. He is quick witted and level headed. It would have been so easy for him to lose his cool when his son goes missing, instead he buckles up and gets to detecting. His son Gary has his father’s mind with a touch of healthy curiosity. Ian is street smart and makes quite an interesting character. While these characters make the read interesting with their charm and wit, there are a couple of characters whom you would love to hate and they make the book even more interesting. Blake Antrim, a CIA operative is one such character.
History, mystery, drama and action filled pages of this novel keeps turning and you hooked to it.
Cotton Malone is a retired agent for the Department of Justice who is now a proud owner of a bookstore. While taking a trip with his teenage son, he agrees to escort a teenage fugitive back to London as a favour to an old connection. When they arrive at the London Airport, it doesn’t take long for things to go horribly wrong. Before anyone has a chance to react, Malone’s son and the fugitive goes missing. Now Malone finds himself involved in a case that revolves around one of the biggest Tudor secret and also is connected to the release of a Libyan terrorist from a Scottish prison.
I am no expert in world history. So, I love reading historical fiction as they give me a chance to research and learn about the topics covered in the novel. In this case I had a chance to look into the Tudor Dynasty – and more specifically into King Henry VIII and his daughter Queen Elizabeth I. It was an amazing experience to then come back to Steve Berry’s work of fiction involving these characters.
Cotton Malone is a character who is easy to love. He is quick witted and level headed. It would have been so easy for him to lose his cool when his son goes missing, instead he buckles up and gets to detecting. His son Gary has his father’s mind with a touch of healthy curiosity. Ian is street smart and makes quite an interesting character. While these characters make the read interesting with their charm and wit, there are a couple of characters whom you would love to hate and they make the book even more interesting. Blake Antrim, a CIA operative is one such character.
History, mystery, drama and action filled pages of this novel keeps turning and you hooked to it.
josilsac's review against another edition
4.0
one of the more interesting cotton malone stories - perhaps i was intrigued because elizabethan england is also intriguing to me.
catladymcgee's review against another edition
4.0
I sort of want to squeal about this book. I really, really, really enjoyed it, and for so many reasons.
1) It's about the freaking Tudors and the great Queen Elizabeth. It's hard to mess that up.
2) The plot addresses the long-held conspiracy theory that Queen Elizabeth was actually a boy who was chosen to impersonate the Princess after she unexpectedly died before King Henry VIII's visit, and then that boy grew into a man queen.
3) Cotton's son, Gary, was a great addition to this plot, and it was great to see more of that relationship develop.
4) It answered A TON of questions remaining around Cotton's affair and his wife's infidelities and Gary's paternity. Like, yeah, it was good.
So, anyway, I could probably be more eloquent on the subject, but let's just suffice to say that it was a deeeeelightful read!
1) It's about the freaking Tudors and the great Queen Elizabeth. It's hard to mess that up.
2) The plot addresses the long-held conspiracy theory that Queen Elizabeth was actually a boy who was chosen to impersonate the Princess after she unexpectedly died before King Henry VIII's visit, and then that boy grew into a man queen.
3) Cotton's son, Gary, was a great addition to this plot, and it was great to see more of that relationship develop.
4) It answered A TON of questions remaining around Cotton's affair and his wife's infidelities and Gary's paternity. Like, yeah, it was good.
So, anyway, I could probably be more eloquent on the subject, but let's just suffice to say that it was a deeeeelightful read!
ozymandias037's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't enjoy this one as much as past Cotton Malone books. I thought the villain was much less of a real character this time around, with motivations that didn't make a lot of sense, to the point where it was sometimes hard to suspend my disbelief and stay immersed in the story. And I thought that it was a shame Cotton's relationship with Cassiopeia Vitt, after slowly building and developing over the course of at least three books, was completely ignored here. In general, I just felt like this particular outing was less polished and less well written than the previous Cotton Malone adventures. I still enjoyed it, but it just wasn't as good as others in the series.
readingorangejane's review against another edition
2.0
Like the plausible tie in to 16th century Tudor history.
thatkellylynnegirl's review against another edition
4.0
The newest installment of Cotton takes us back two years and on an adventure in London. It tells a tale and secret of Elizabeth I and the Tudor family. Great plot, lots of twists and action filled.
nicoleabouttown's review against another edition
4.0
I have a great passion for history. I truly love everything about it, including the stories, events, people, traditions, and more. I understand that not many people share this passion, but I believe that if history textbooks were written by Steve Berry, history would become everyone's favorite subject. Just imagine a class titled "Everything I Need to Know About History I Learned from a Steve Berry Novel"! If such a class existed, I would definitely take it and excel in it.
"The King's Deception" is the eighth book in the widely popular Cotton Malone series by Steve Berry. Like the previous books in the series, "The King's Deception" skillfully combines historical facts with historical fiction, resulting in an incredible story. I was completely engrossed in this book and found it increasingly captivating with every page I turned. Not only do we encounter familiar characters, but we are also introduced to a plethora of new ones. One of the aspects I particularly enjoy about this series is that a) Cotton loves books, b) despite being the main character and highly intelligent, he is not depicted as an expert in everything and does not single-handedly save the world, and c) the story effortlessly weaves everything together.
One of the major strengths of "The King's Deception" is that, unlike other books in the action/thriller genre, the world is not at stake. While national secrets are being protected, the fate of the entire world does not hang in the balance if these secrets are exposed. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate books where the world's fate is on the line just as much as the next person, but it is refreshing to read something that does not solely rely on the US saving the day.
The only disappointment I had with "The King's Deception" is that even after eight books in the series, I am still no closer to discovering the origin of Cotton Malone's name. Perhaps I will finally learn the answer in the ninth book!
"The King's Deception" is the eighth book in the widely popular Cotton Malone series by Steve Berry. Like the previous books in the series, "The King's Deception" skillfully combines historical facts with historical fiction, resulting in an incredible story. I was completely engrossed in this book and found it increasingly captivating with every page I turned. Not only do we encounter familiar characters, but we are also introduced to a plethora of new ones. One of the aspects I particularly enjoy about this series is that a) Cotton loves books, b) despite being the main character and highly intelligent, he is not depicted as an expert in everything and does not single-handedly save the world, and c) the story effortlessly weaves everything together.
One of the major strengths of "The King's Deception" is that, unlike other books in the action/thriller genre, the world is not at stake. While national secrets are being protected, the fate of the entire world does not hang in the balance if these secrets are exposed. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate books where the world's fate is on the line just as much as the next person, but it is refreshing to read something that does not solely rely on the US saving the day.
The only disappointment I had with "The King's Deception" is that even after eight books in the series, I am still no closer to discovering the origin of Cotton Malone's name. Perhaps I will finally learn the answer in the ninth book!
bskts4ver's review against another edition
4.0
After I read Mr. Berry's "The Jefferson Key", I said that it was my favorite of his Cotton Malone series of books, but now that I've read this, I have to say that this is my favorite so far. If you like English history, especially the era of Elizabeth I, like I do, then you'll love this book. The premise is that after the death of Henry VIII, a secret so great was kept throughout the ages, a secret that could re-write English history and that could also include great wealth. This secret is sought by many and in this book, the good guys and the bad guys tend to blur in the race to uncover the secret. Although Cotton is the hero of this series and a character in this book, I feel that the book concentrated more on Cotton's son, Gary and an London street orphan who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. This book also addresses what we learned in a previous book that Gary isn't Cotton's biological son and we follow Gary in his quest to find his birth father.
karenangela_1's review against another edition
3.0
This is an entertaining enough read, quick but undemanding, just leave your brain at the door. Oh and also ignore the factual errors, although given that the author makes a song and dance about all the research that he did you think at some point he would have read something that told him that James II was actually the brother of Charles II and not his son.