THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, Steve Berry’s latest work, is a
500-plus-page opus that combines fact, fiction, educated conjecture
and strong characterization while maintaining rapid-fire
readability at all times.

Main protagonist Cotton Malone once again is the lynchpin that
holds together what transpires. This time, though, he shares the
spotlight with Edwin Davis, a presidential deputy national security
advisor, and Stephanie Nelle. Nelle is the head of a U.S. Justice
Department lawyer task force in Atlanta, Georgia, and a member of
Magellan Billet, an off-the-book operation from which Malone is
ostensibly retired. All are drawn together by two events taking
place half a world apart.

Malone is approached in Germany by Dorothea Lindauer, a
mysterious woman who claims a tragic kinship with Malone.
Malone’s father, Forrest, a U.S. Navy captain, died
tragically at sea in 1971 when Malone was 10 years old. Malone had
been told that he perished in a submarine disaster in the North
Atlantic. But what Lindauer reveals is that Forrest actually lost
his life while commanding a secret prototype nuclear submarine on a
classified mission beneath the Antarctic ice shelves. It turns out
that Lindauer’s father was on the sub as well. Malone
requests and obtains the military files on the incident from Nelle
and learns that what Lindauer is telling him is true. Lindauer
wants Malone’s assistance in determining the final fate of
the sub and their respective fathers, but she has an additional
stake in the investigation.

Lindauer and her twin sister, Christl Falk, are locked in a
battle for the fortune that their conniving mother has promised to
whomever of them can discover the ultimate fate of their father,
who had his own reasons for being on the sub. A former Nazi, he had
been part of a Third Reich exploration of Antarctica in 1938 that
had been organized as the result of cryptic clues discovered in the
tomb of Charlemagne. As Malone begins his investigation,
reluctantly involving himself with the warring sisters, he learns
of the existence of a series of journals written in an unknown
script referred to as “the language of heaven.” These
lead Malone across France and Germany and ultimately to Antarctica,
where he will experience two major revelations: one with potential
consequences for humanity, and the other that will personally
affect him to the very depth of his being.

While Malone conducts his investigation and pursuit, events in
the United States are being influenced by his quest. His inquiry
into the military files concerning his father’s death has
attracted the attention of Langford Ramsey, an overly ambitious and
almost universally detested Navy admiral who has his sights set on
a vacant seat among the Joint Chiefs of Staff --- a vacancy he
created. Early in his career, Ramsey led a top-secret mission to
the Antarctic in 1971 to determine the fate of Forrest Malone and
his crew. He has kept secret what he discovered and is trying to
keep Malone away from it, permanently, even as he pursues his own
ambitions at home with a ruthlessness that is startling. Only Nelle
and Davis stand in Ramsey’s way, even as his nomination to
the Joint Chiefs --- and beyond --- seems assured.

Berry brings both plots to a steady boil; they run to a
fast-paced but measured conclusion --- it is impossible to stop
reading during the book’s final half --- which not only
presents an interesting and plausible explanation of one aspect of
history’s many mysteries, but also provides readers with a
key piece of information regarding Malone’s background. And
notwithstanding an exciting, almost exhaustive denouement, Berry
pulls off the very neat trick of leaving his readers wanting even
more, teasing the next novel with an ending that begins the events
of that yet-to-be-seen work. If that isn’t enough, he
additionally provides fodder for thriller aficionados, name
checking (very briefly) another author’s character and naming
a secondary character after the spouse of a prominent thriller
author.

There is literally something for everyone in THE CHARLEMAGNE
PURSUIT, and all of it is great.