The Kaiser's Web

November 1, 2020
In this sixteenth entry in the Cotton Malone adventure series, Germany is about to hold its national elections. There are two candidates for chancellor, both of whom harbor secrets and both of whom are convinced they are the best person to lead the country. Standing between order and potential mayhem is U.S. Justice Department operative Cotton Malone, who discovers that the future of Germany hinges on the answer to the question of whether Adolf Hitler really died in a bunker in 1945. The Malone novels are formulaic, sure, but the formula is a good one, and Cotton remains a likable, entertaining series lead. Berry keeps finding enticing alternate-history mysteries for Malone to solve; the link between history and the present is always interesting enough to allow the reader to disregard any inherent implausibilities in the story--there are a couple of good-sized ones here, but fans won't care one whit. Keep 'em coming.

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November 16, 2020
At the start of bestseller Berry’s thrilling 16th Cotton Malone novel (after 2020’s The Warsaw Protocol), former U.S. president Danny Daniels travels to Bavaria at the request of Marie Eisenhuth, the pro-American German chancellor. In a police station interrogation room, he meets Hanna Cress, a shadowy Belarussian operative, who hands over an envelope containing some GPS coordinates. Cress says the coordinates indicate a place Daniels is supposed to visit, but she doesn’t know why. Then she lights up what turns out to be a cyanide-laced cigarette; just before expiring, she utters the word Kaiser. The meeting comes in the midst of a contentious German national election in which Eisenhuth faces a vigorous challenge from an anti-immigrant candidate with a murky past. Daniels contacts Malone, a former agent for a clandestine division of the Justice Department, and asks for his help to insure Eisenhuth’s reelection. Malone’s mission takes him and the de rigeur attractive female partner to Chile. Berry skillfully lays out yet another tantalizing historical what-if, this one connected to Hitler’s last days in his bunker below Berlin. Fans of over-the-top action yarns will be pleased. Agent: Simon Lipskar, Writers House.

December 15, 2020
The rise of a neo-fascist with deep roots in the Third Reich pulls not-exactly-retired Justice Department agent Cotton Malone back for a 16th round of international intrigue. A specter is haunting Europe. No, not the coronavirus but Theodor Pohl, an insurgent German nationalist who's set his sights first on toppling long-serving chancellor Marie Eisenhuth, then on making the Fatherland great again--really, really great. Barely have Malone and his lover and comrade in arms Cassiopeia Vitt dusted themselves off from their leap from their mortally wounded plane in Poland on a single parachute than ex-President Danny Daniels is packing them off to Chile to investigate rumors that Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, and Martin Bormann didn't all die in that bunker in 1945; at least one of them escaped to South America with billions in Nazi gold. The trip to Chile produces some eye-popping revelations and whittles down the cast, but instead of settling matters for good, it propels Malone and Vitt to South Africa for further investigations among people determined to be left alone until their time has come. Meanwhile, back in Germany, the chancellor realizes that she's being undermined by not only Pohl and his ruthless acolyte, Josef Engle, but her xenophobic husband, Kurt Eisenhuth, whose past is even more checkered than she knows. Cannily mixing historical research with florid inventions that fill in gaps and sometimes fly in the face of the available evidence, Berry presents an ominously up-to-date world whose frenzied nationalism is a direct descendant of the Thousand-Year Reich. Hitler may not live, but Heil Hitler is alive and all too well.

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