The Medici Return
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- € 9,49
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From celebrated New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry comes the latest installment in his wildly popular Cotton Malone series, in which Cotton must solve a five hundred year-old mystery—now in development as a streaming series.
Cotton Malone is on the hunt for a forgotten 16th century Pledge of Christ—a sworn promise made by Pope Julius II that evidences a monetary debt owed by the Vatican, still valid after five centuries—now worth in the trillions of dollars. But collecting that debt centers around what happened to the famed Medici of Florence—a family that history says died out, without heirs, centuries ago.
Who will become the next prime minister of Italy, and who will be the next pope? Finding answers proves difficult until Cotton realizes that everything hinges on when, and if, the Medici return.
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Berry's scorching latest thriller featuring Cotton Malone (after The Atlas Maneuver) finds the retired U.S. Justice Department operative once again battling violent men over events in the distant past. After a dozen years with the government, Malone has started a new life as a bookstore owner. But he's drawn back into the fray by his former handler, Stephanie Nelle, after the Vatican is roiled by a scandal: a church official on trial for embezzlement and theft has implicated Cardinal Jason Richter—a close friend of the current pope, who will help select his successor—in his schemes. Malone breaks into Richter's home and verifies that he's in possession of stolen items, but suspects the cardinal has been framed. The plot thickens when right-wing Italian politician Eric Casaburi claims the Vatican owes him hundreds of billions of euros as a descendant of the Medici family, whose members, centuries earlier, bailed out the church with a sizeable loan guaranteed by the Pledge of Christ. Malone joins church officials on a dangerous search for that rarely issued promissory note. The plot offers few surprises, but series fans are likely to stick it out for the fast-paced, well-oiled action. This may not be top-shelf Berry, but it gets the job done.
