6 Best Steve Berry Books (2024) - That You Must Read!

Bio

Berry was born on the 2^nd of September, in the year of 1955, in the state of Georgia, United States of America. Berry is a notable American writer of thriller novels and historical fiction, and an ex-attorney. His works have been featured on the Publishers Weekly, Book Sense, USA Today, and The New York Times bestseller lists numerous times.

As noted, Berry was born in Georgia, USA, where he graduated from Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law. He was employed as a trial lawyer for some three decades, with nearly half of that time spent holding elective office. Berry is one of the founding members of International Thriller Writers.

Best Steve Berry Books

Achievements

In terms of awards and accolades, Berry has received the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award, the 2013 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, the 2013 Anne Frank Human Writers Award, the Silver Bullet, etc. Berry was even named as the spokesperson for National Preservation Week in 2012 and 2013 for his work surrounding historic preservation. With that noted, let’s now take a look at our picks for the best Steve Berry books.

Cotton Malone Series

Masterpiece

Berry’s Cotton Malone series is the most well-known, well-read, and loved series by the author to date. Oftentimes, it is referred to as being the best Steve Berry book series and we concur with that assertion. Berry’s Cotton Malone novels in order go as follows:

The Templar Legacy
The Alexandria Link
The Venetian Betrayal
The Charlemagne Pursuit
The Paris Vendetta
The Emperor’s Tomb
The Jefferson Key
The King’s Deception
The Lincoln Myth
The Patriot Threat
The 14^th Colony
The Lost Order
The Bishop’s Pawn
The Malta Exchange
The Warsaw Protocol
The Kaiser’s Web, a yet to be published novel

An Ancient Order

Now, having put Berry’s Cotton Malone series in order, let’s see what the books are actually about. The quite old Templar Knights order was one that had a lot of power in its possession and a lot of wealth, too.

However, once the inquisition came, they were seemingly purged from the earth, with all their wealth gone just as they were now. However, it has now become the general opinion and the general belief that the riches are not lost, just hidden away.

Never Out of the Business

Cotton Malone, a former top operative having worked for the United States Justice Department, is living his calm, pleasant life as a book dealer of antiquarian books in Copenhagen, Denmark, when he receives a call, one that pulls him back to a life that he had given up on.

Stephanie Nelle, the ex-supervisor of Cotton, who is currently working on cracking a very old code, has just barely survived a robbery attempt, so Cotton knows that whatever is happening, it’s a big deal. As the story about the Knights Templar continues, Cotton Malone puts himself into more and more danger. No better book to read for anyone getting into Berry’s Malone series.

An Invaluable Treasure

In the second installment of one of the best Steve Berry series, we see as the retired Cotton Malone is once again trying to live the under-the-radar, enjoyable life he had desired.

However, just as last time, Cotton is prompted by an e-mail, one that is essentially threatening him to find a particular something or his teenage son will be killed. The threat becomes all too real when his son is actually kidnapped and his bookstore is ashes. What the man threatening him desires is the long, lost Library of Alexandria.

A Cradle of a Civilization

The Library of Alexandria is known as being a great source of many of the world’s literary, scientific, religious, philosophical, and historical ambitions up to the point that it was lost, so getting the notions kept therein would mean a lot for the world.

A millennium and a half ago, the Library of Alexandria was pulled on by the misty fog of legend, with all of the knowledge hidden inside seemingly lost forever. That is, until the mogul cartel, hellbent on changing history as we know it, decided to blackmail Malone to find out where it is.

Through England, America, and Portugal, Malone will not rest until he has his son back. This is one of Berry’s best novels ever.

Alexander the Great

In book number three as we’re following Berry’s Cotton Malone books in order, named The Venetian Betrayal, Malone somehow has an even more daunting task ahead of himself.

Finding out where exactly Alexander the Great was buried is something that has irked and intrigued the minds of many an archaeologist, historian, and even common man, but one can say that they didn’t have quite the incentive that Malone does. Following an arsonist attack on a Danish museum that he barely survived, Cotton is informed that something far greater is afoot.

A Clock Is Ticking

Where the Soviet Union failed, now stands the Central Asian Federation. With Supreme Minister Irina Zovastina, a despotic ruler with the sole intention of conquering the world in a fashion that would put her above Alexander the Great, it seems that she is ill at ease to pull the trigger.

Having many a biological weapon, to boot the plethora of other sorts, what is keeping Irina at bay is the fact that the serum which could put a dent in her plans is still with the mummified corpse of Alexander the Great.

Having no other recourse, Malone sets out on finding where the ruler was buried and saving the world. It is no surprise to know that these are the most popular Steve Berry books in tandem with being the best-selling Berry books.

Father’s Killers

In the fourth novel of the series, Cotton Malone must face an even greater foe – his past. When he was just a youngling, Cotton was informed that his father perished in a submarine disaster, but being suspicious has gotten Malone a long way and he’s not about to give that up.

Stephanie Nelle is the one that secures the military files on that particular incident and hands them to Cotton. It is here that Malone learns the ship his father was on was a nuclear vessel that was deemed as lost while on a mission to the nether regions of Antarctica.

Deep Mystery

The father of Malone, however, wasn’t the only man that seemingly perished. Dorothea Lindauer and Christl Falk were told by their mother that one of them found out the truth about their father’s demise would inherit all the wealth she had.

In a story involving the tomb of Charlemagne, the Nazi exploration of Antarctica even before the Americans step foot there, cryptic journal entries, cryptic writing, and the death of his father, Malone will stop at nothing until he gets the answers that he seeks. A worthy contender for being Steve Berry’s best book.

Bonaparte’s Last Gift

In book number five, titled The Paris Vendetta, we go as far back as the first decades of the 19^th century. It was here that Napoleon Bonaparte, the great French ruler, perished in exile, but with him, he also carried a terrible secret.

Having conquered many a city, many a palace, and many a ruler, Napoleon was privy to many secrets, but he revealed none to the captors and revealed nothing in his last will, or could he have been so subtle in the will as to pass undetected for so long?

Once more forced to take a step away from his enjoyable, kind life as a book dealer, Malone has to find out what it is that Bonaparte kept concealed and what it means for the world.

The Amber Room

A Priceless Artifact

One of Steve Berry’s best books is The Amber Room. The Amber Room was published in the year of 2003, spanning a little more than four-hundred pages, and it’s one of our favorites among the Steve Berry book reviews. The Amber Room, a whole room made out of nothing but the most delicate, most beautiful, and most valuable amber, is something that has plagued the minds of treasure hunters for many, many years now.

Commissioned by Frederick the First of Prussia, in 1701, it was later perfected in Tsarskoye Selo, of Russia. In the third year of the Second World War, upon the invasion of the Nazis on the Soviet Union, the Amber Room was seized. When the Allies started bombing Germany in the year of 1944, the Amber Room, it was decided, was to be hidden.

Privy to the Secret

Now, for all those years, the Amber Room has been hidden away, with treasure and art collectors from across the globe not having the slightest inkling of where to search. Rachel Cutler, a judge from Atlanta, is a woman that enjoys the work she does, loves her children, and is in good relations with her ex-spouse.

However, when Rachel Cutler’s father, a veteran from the Second World War dies under conditions that can only be referred to as suspicious, leaving only a single clue as to the truth, she is pulled into a century-old hunt. One of the best-rated Berry books for a reason.

The Romanov Prophecy

Executed

The Romanov Prophecy is, like all of Berry’s books, a very thrilling, intriguing, fascinating, and satisfying novel. It is frequently observed as being one of the top Steve Berry books, if not the best Steve Berry book. The Romanov Prophecy was published in the year of 2004.

In the year of 1918, just as the First World War was coming to its end, only ten months following the end of Nicholas the Second’s reign being stopped, in Ekaterinburg, Russia, the White Army comes upon a city where the Tsar along with his Tsar family have been abducted by none other than the Bolshevik party and their men. Nicholas the Second has only the freedom to hope for better, but the Romanovs are mercilessly killed just then and there.

The Second Coming of the Tsar

In the present day in Moscow, Russia, the lawyer from Atlanta, one Miles Lord, is a man that is fluent in the language and insightful as pertains to the history of the nation. Following the fall of Communism here, along with several weaker governments, the Russians have voted for the return of monarchy.

A relative of Nicholas the Second has been chosen as the coming Tsar, with Miles’ job being to check the background of the prospective Tsar. However, narrowly surviving an assault with deadly weapons doesn’t rub Miles the right way and nor does the truth when he finds it out.

The Third Secret

Just a Sham?

Now, if one were searching for Berry’s books ranked, we would suggest looking up our next pick, The Third Secret, because it is such a fine novel. It might just be the best Steve Berry novel of all time. The Third Secret was published in the year of 2005. In the year of 1917, in Fatima, situated in Portugal, it is said that the Virgin Mary was seen by three peasant children and imparted to each of them a secret, thus there being three secrets in total.

Two of these secrets are going to be heard by the world rather soon, but the third one has been sealed in the Vatican and has only been read by each subsequent pope. No one is to utter even a single word of it before the year 2000, but when the time comes that it is revealed, people begin wondering whether it’s all a sham or wool is being pulled over their eyes regarding the last secret.

Holy Words Kept Away

In the present day of the Vatican City, the secretary Father Colin Michener has his concerns for the Pope. Each night, restless beyond measure, Clement XV goes into the Riserva, a special archive reserved only for the pope, where the most sacrosanct and most controversial documents are kept.

Colin Michener is not the only one with concerns, though his are the only pure ones, but when he is sent to a Bosnian holy site in search for a priest, he knows that something important is going on. One of the best Steve Berry novels.

Cassiopeia Vitt Adventure Series

Spin-Off

The Cassiopeia Vitt Adventure series is one that incorporates a character from the Cotton Malone series, a Cassiopeia Vitt. The series at hand is comprised of four books in total. These particular Steve Berry’s books in chronological order are:

The Balkan Escape
The Museum of Mysteries
The Lake of Learning
The House of Long Ago

From Bulgaria With Love

Having covered what these Berry’s books in order are, let’s begin with The Balkan Escape. Henrik Thorvaldsen, a billionaire that is known for being a genuine enigma, has asked of Cassiopeia Vitt a daunting and perilous thing to do.

The favor in question will see Cassiopeia to enter Bulgaria via the Rila mountains to recover a supposedly buried group of exceptionally rare and invaluable artifacts from a civilization long dead.

In Dire Straits

That is, what Cassiopeia is to find it the tomb of a certain Thracian King. However, when a shady group of Russians that were surreptitiously mining the region discovers what Cassiopeia is doing, they are hellbent on stopping any attempts at uncovering any ancient tomb.

With no one to trust, with no one to help, can Cassiopeia make it out alive? And if so, can Cassiopeia make it out alive with the artifacts she’s been sent for? Worth noting is that this series also has some of the new books by Steve Berry.

The Columbus Affair

Besmirched by a Lie

Another worthwhile novel and one of the best books by Steve Berry is The Columbus Affair. The Columbus Affair was published in the year of 2012, spanning approximately four-hundred pages or so. The Columbus Affair follows Tom Sagan. Tom Sagan is an investigative journalist and a darn good one at that.

He has won the Pulitzer Prize for his work, having written articles that have caused a buzz around the globe. However, when one of these articles about the Middle East is discovered to have been a lie, his credibility and reputation are put in question. Having no other recourse, Sagan lives exiled, with a truth that he holds dearly, one that says that he was sabotaged.

Clearing His Name

A certain stranger, one day, comes upon Tom Sagan and gives him a chance to act. With Sagan doing the bidding of this stranger, Magellan Billet notices that something is afoot. Billet is a top-secret corps of the US Justice Department.

Before long, Sagan is in the midst of an international incident, with enemies in abundance. From Vienna to Prague, all the way to Jamaica, Sagan is a man bent on clearing his name. And without a shadow of a doubt, we believe that this is one of the best Steve Berry books of all time. The tie-in novels of the Cotton Malone series, we believe, are worth picking up too.

Robert Hazley

Robert is a science fiction and fantasy geek. (He is also the best looking Ereads writer!) Besides reading and writing, he enjoys sports, cosplay, and good food (don't we all?). Currently works as an accountant (would you believe that?)