If you love books that deal with treasure hunts, unraveling historical puzzles and stuff; if you have loved Dan Brown’s Da Vinci’s Code then you will fall in love with Steve Berry’s works.

Steve Berry’s plots generally pick a historical legend – a man or place and the story revolves around it. In this case, the title TheVenetian Betrayal misleads you to think that this book is all about Venice. This book has a Venetian connection but the central theme is all about Alexander the great.

This is the third book in the series featuring Cotton Malone, a retired US justice department employee now running a book store in Copenhagen. Malone with his friends Cassiopea Vitt and Henrik Thorvalsden take on another villain bent on world domination, Irina Zovastina, supreme minister of the Central Asian Federation, and her friends who are plotting to use a bioweapon to destroy Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Malone races around the globe trying to find the means to foil the minister.

Is Irina the real villain or do we have other vested interests that are using her to meet their ends? So where was Alexander actually buried? Read the book for all answers. To quote a friend “Together, Cotton and Cassiopeia must outrun and outthink the forces allied against them. Their perilous quest will take them to the shores of Denmark, deep into the venerated monuments of Venice, and finally high inside the desolate Pamir mountains of Central Asia to unravel a riddle whose solution could destroy or save millions of people–depending on who finds the lost tomb first”

There is so much in this book that will keep you hooked – the Greek fire that can burn down the buildings in minutes, the Venetian council and how they have been controlling world finances, Alexander’s life and death, the manuscripts, the turbulent history of central asia, Alexander’s posthumous Greek kingdom and of course, the intelligence agencies from USA who at times are silent watchers and at times the ones calling shots that add to the thrills and frills of this book.

This is a very entertaining read for history buffs but then there is a lot of fiction too (which has been clearly acknowledged by the author at the end of the book). And for the non- history buffs, give it a try; you will relish the fact that you have been given history lessons while you were busy reading entertaining fiction.