The Lincoln Myth

The Lincoln Myth
By: Steve Berry
448 Pages
Reviewed By: David Nelissen

Summary:
September 1861: All is not as it seems. With these cryptic words, a shocking secret passed down from president to president comes to rest in the hands of Abraham Lincoln. And as the first bloody clashes of the Civil War unfold, Lincoln alone must decide how best to use this volatile knowledge: save thousands of American lives, or keep the young nation from being torn apart forever?

The present: In Utah, the fabled remains of Mormon pioneers whose nineteenth-century expedition across the desert met with a murderous end have been uncovered. In Washington, D.C., the official investigation of an international entrepreneur, an elder in the Mormon church, has sparked a political battle between the White House and a powerful United States senator. In Denmark, a Justice Department agent, missing in action, has fallen into the hands of a dangerous zealot—a man driven by divine visions to make a prophet’s words reality. And in a matter of a few short hours, Cotton Malone has gone from quietly selling books at his shop in Denmark to dodging bullets in a high-speed boat chase.

All it takes is a phone call from his former boss in Washington, and suddenly the ex-agent is racing to rescue an informant carrying critical intelligence. It’s just the kind of perilous business that Malone has been trying to leave behind, ever since he retired from the Justice Department. But once he draws enemy blood, Malone is plunged into a deadly conflict—a constitutional war secretly set in motion more than two hundred years ago by America’s Founding Fathers. --courtesy of publisher

In The Lincoln Myth, we return to the action-packed life of Cotton Malone to have Steve Berry challenge some of our knowledge of history. This time the mystery focuses around Lincoln, the American Civil War, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It starts, as usual, with Cotton doing a favor for his former boss (seriously, you would think he would have learned his lesson by now). He needs to meet and help a Magellan Billet agent near where he lives, and... yep, a religious fanatic (there is always at least one in Steve Berry books) causes bad things to start happening. Multiple characters and plot angles are followed, ranging from Europe to the USA, and an agreement between Abraham Lincoln and the leaders of the Mormon faith are discovered.

The book was very much like previous Cotton Malone books int hat the action was well paced and easy to follow, with the the critical information of the plot spread out in chunks which always seem to leave me wanting to know the entire story right away. The plot was interesting and gave a lot of information about the Latter-Day Saints that many people may not know. As always, Berry added a "Writer's Note" at the end to let us, the readers, know where he embellished in the story.

All in all, this books was good. It had me involved in the characters. It had me imagining some wonderful sights in Europe. It also introduced a new interesting character that we may see in later books. It especially had me involved in the plot. I, personally, do not believe this is the best Cotton Malone book I have read, but it was definitely worth reading if you like the character of this genre.