The Charlemagne Pursuit

Cotton Malone has always been told his father died in a nuclear submarine accident in the North Atlantic, and when the classified files finally surface, the truth is stranger and more dangerous than a standard naval tragedy. His father's submarine was on a secret mission beneath Antarctica, connected to Nazi expeditions from 1938 and to something buried in the ice that the American government has been suppressing for decades. Steve Berry's fourth Cotton Malone novel is the series' most geographically ambitious, spanning ancient German cathedrals, French citadels, and the Antarctic ice shelf.

Scott Brick's narration handles the historical scope with the authority the Malone series demands, his voice as comfortable in the wartime flashback sections as in the present-day thriller. The personal stakes of a father's secret give this entry an emotional dimension that the series' more purely political plots sometimes lack, and Brick honors that dimension with appropriate weight. At just over sixteen hours, The Charlemagne Pursuit delivers the series' grand historical conspiracy template at full stretch.