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Secrets, Power-Hungry Ruler Test Good-Guy Ex-Agent

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By MARY PATRICK

Published: February 10, 2008

"The Venetian Betrayal," by Steve Berry (Ballantine, $26)

This is one of those books in which everyone is scheming and half the characters are in diabolical cahoots. At least one is a member of a secret society out to rule the world. And it even has a made-up nation, the Central Asian Federation, just to add some spice.

The good guy, as in Berry's previous novel, "The Alexandria Link," is former secret agent turned rare-books dealer Cotton Malone. Yes, that is wildly improbable, just like the plots to all those big-budget movie thrillers that come out in the summer. And that's what this book equates to - a summer thriller with just a smidge more brains.

Malone is minding his own business in Copenhagen, where he runs his book store, and is summoned to a meeting with an old flame, Cassiopeia Vitt. (Berry is good with the memorable names.) When the building he is to meet her in burns down - with him almost in it - he is plunged into a mystery involving a Venice-based secret society, the power-crazed female ruler of the Central Asian Federation (another good name: Supreme Minister Irina Zovastina) and a battle over releasing and making money from a cure for AIDS.

All that is fairly entertaining in a light read sort of way. Things gets muddled when Berry gets into secrets involving Alexander the Great and the burial of his body, a "Da Vinci Code" sort of plot line that never really works. Otherwise, this is fine reading for someone who wants the good guys to overcome impossible obstacles and finally win. And who doesn't like that?

Mary Patrick of Tampa is a freelance writer.

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