cover image The King’s Deception

The King’s Deception

Steve Berry, read by Scott Brick. Random House Audio, 11 CDs, 13.5 hrs., $50 ISBN 978-0-449-00900-0

In Berry’s contemporary thriller, when series hero Cotton Malone goes to England with his teenage son, Gary, he gets entwined in a bizarre CIA operation involving a secret that dates back to the time of the Tudors. Along the way, Malone must deal with assassins, secret agents, and members of a fanatical cult, and his angry ex-wife. Narrator Scott Brick skillfully handles all this, handing in a performance that is controlled, well paced, and features slightly nasal narration that smoothly shifts between American and British accents. References to events in 16th-century England are interspersed with descriptions of modern-day spy work—and Brick delivers them all sedately, with an appropriately stiff upper lip. A Ballantine hardcover. (July)