Today we are joined by thriller fan and book reviewer - The Saturday Dad (@dad_saturday on twitter/X) to discuss The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry - book #2 in the Cotton Malone series.
We explore the historical themes, character dynamics, & plot twists that define the book, comparing it to its predecessor, 'The Templar Legacy.' The conversation delves into the importance of setting, family relationships, and the pacing of the narrative, culminating in a scorecard evaluation of the book's action, plot, and buy-in.
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CHAPTERS
01:13 Exploring the Templar Legacy and Alexandria Link
03:34 Historical Context and Themes in Steve Berry's Work
20:50 Family Dynamics and Character Relationships
27:51 Overall Impressions and Future of the Series
33:24 Scorecard Breakdown: Action, Plot, and Buy-In
36:28 Exploring the Plot: Historical Context and Character Motivations
45:01 Villains and Antagonists: Analyzing the Bad Guys
52:23 Protagonists and Allies: The Strength of Good Characters
56:55 Setting the Scene: Locations and Their Impact
01:00:02 Cover Art: Visual Representation of the Story
01:09:30 Final Thoughts and Scores
01:12:57 Closing Remarks and Future Reads
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KEYWORDS:
Steve Berry, Alexandria Link, Templar Legacy, historical fiction, thriller, book review, character development, plot twists, action sequences, family dynamics, character dynamics, villain analysis, stakes, character development, setting, world-building, cover art, final thoughts, ratings, book review
#NoLimitsPodcast #ThrillerPodcast #ThrillerPod #SpyThrillers
00:00:16
Hey, guys, I'm Chris. And I'm Mike.
00:00:19
And welcome back to this week's No Limits the Thriller Podcast,
00:00:23
coming to you with an extra special guest tonight.
00:00:26
Why don't you introduce yourself for our customers?
00:00:30
Yeah, sure. My name is Brandon.
00:00:33
Those of you who interact with me on X, you might know me as
00:00:39
Saturday Dad from posting all the book reviews and Saturday
00:00:43
Dad Reads newsletter on X coming at you live here from from
00:00:48
Pittsburgh this evening. So happy to be here on the
00:00:52
Thriller pod and, you know, talking Steve Berry in the
00:00:57
Alexandria link. Dude, super excited to have you
00:01:01
on here. Mike had mentioned that, you
00:01:05
know, we had read what was the first one called Templar Legacy.
00:01:08
Templar Legacy, yes. And he's been he was begging me,
00:01:10
begging me to to read these for years.
00:01:13
Yeah, finally, you know, he and he knows that I'm a big I love
00:01:16
Dan Brown. I love like that style of
00:01:19
thriller. But, you know, I hadn't really
00:01:21
had time to dig into those being so immersed in this like, you
00:01:25
know, military, you know, espionage spy thing.
00:01:28
Finally we did it and loved it. And then he's like, yo, this guy
00:01:33
who's gone on Twitter says if you like that one, you you got
00:01:37
to read Alexandria link. So we're glad to have you here.
00:01:39
We're glad to talk about it. I, I don't know, Mike, you said
00:01:42
he's got a hopefully he's our height man.
00:01:43
I, I love this book. Did you not love this book?
00:01:46
OK, no, I'm glad I did. I did.
00:01:48
I was hoping to like it more than the first.
00:01:51
And I mean, we, we're going to that's.
00:01:53
Tough. That's tough.
00:01:54
It's, it's a tough thing to do. I I don't know.
00:01:58
I don't know if it tops the Templar legacy.
00:02:00
So I still love it. I love Steve Berry.
00:02:02
Yes. I was the one pushing us in that
00:02:04
direction. I had taken some time off from
00:02:06
Steve Berry for a little while and then when I finally got back
00:02:09
into him, it was just so cool that we did years of Brad Thor's
00:02:13
books and and he does a lot of the history stuff in those
00:02:17
angles. But Steve Berry like 10X is it.
00:02:19
He goes all in on the historical narrative, the historical
00:02:22
research where Brad dabbles in it and then he gets to modern
00:02:25
day politics a bit quicker or he dabbles in it and then, you
00:02:29
know, Scott has so many other things to deal with, like
00:02:31
pressing, you know, terrorist attacks and everything.
00:02:34
You couldn't like live in the history.
00:02:36
He did that earlier in his career.
00:02:37
Brad Thore, But Steve Berry, every single book lives in
00:02:40
history. The plot, the protagonist, the
00:02:42
main characters, the villains are all intimately tied to some
00:02:45
historical tidbit or nugget that I mean, I just frankly want to
00:02:49
know more about. He did it with Templar legacy.
00:02:51
He does it here with the Library of Alexandria and then and the
00:02:55
the biblical scholarship. So love the history aspect.
00:02:59
What Steve Berry's doing, he does at the top of his game,
00:03:02
Best of the best in the world. It's other things, plot related,
00:03:06
a bit character and plot related, that bogged me down.
00:03:08
So I don't want to start negative.
00:03:10
We'll get into it. Yeah, I'm glad there's 2
00:03:12
Pennsylvania hype men over here for me.
00:03:15
Yeah, Brandon, what what, what do you think about it?
00:03:16
Give us your your hot take. Well, personally, I, I enjoyed
00:03:21
it more than the Templar legacy and for me Templar Legacy was
00:03:26
great, but I wanted more of the history in Templar legacy.
00:03:31
And I feel like what what really in a in a book like you had
00:03:36
mentioned Dan Brown in Dan Brown's books, like when he gets
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into the nuances of like painting or like the symbol of
00:03:43
something that really draws me in.
00:03:47
And I feel like Steve Berry did that to a greater extent in the
00:03:52
Alexandria link then he did with the Templar legacy.
00:03:58
It, it was there in the Templar legacy.
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But this one, it just felt like there was all these different
00:04:02
threads that that sucked me in as far as like the historical
00:04:06
side of things. Plus you have the one big thing
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too is what, what was huge for me is, is seeing how Steve Berry
00:04:14
takes something that you know, is, is lost to time and history
00:04:20
in in the Library of Alexandria and wanting to see like, what is
00:04:23
this going to look like coming from this guy's mind?
00:04:26
So that was that was a big piece for me too, and wanting to see
00:04:30
what is going to be his take on it and how is he going to, you
00:04:35
know, how's he going to reveal that to us?
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So that was, you know, that those sorts of things really
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just were present in in the Alexandria link for me more so
00:04:44
than in the Templar legacy. And I'm I'm kind of with you
00:04:47
there too. There were there were a couple
00:04:49
things dialogue wise and maybe plot wise that that weren't
00:04:54
weren't there, but the historical side of things were
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just really what did it for me in this one.
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Yeah, I, I guess I see that and it's almost like, well, first of
00:05:05
all, it's very interesting that he decided to follow up his
00:05:09
first book, which is, you know, quote, UN quote, exposing the
00:05:14
the falsehoods of the New Testament, you know, of Christ,
00:05:16
you know, like the foundation of the church to then.
00:05:19
All right, I'm immediately going to go to the the Old Testament
00:05:22
and tackle that. You know, one, that's super
00:05:25
interesting. But two, you're right in that
00:05:28
the first book was way more driven on like we didn't know
00:05:32
what, you know, the Holy Grail, like what, what was like what
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the Templars knew. Like, you know, we knew it was
00:05:39
like something big, but that was like kind of like the big plot
00:05:43
twist. I guess, you know, there was
00:05:44
some other ones, but whereas here it was kind of spilled very
00:05:48
early on, like what the twist was or not, not in not not the
00:05:54
big twist at the end that, you know, it was all orchestrated by
00:05:57
by Georgia Dodd, but that, you know, that where there was this,
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you know, essentially the everything about the Old
00:06:03
Testament, it was written and it was all fake.
00:06:05
And like, yeah, it kind of like got peeled back more and more as
00:06:08
we went along. But that wasn't what was driving
00:06:11
our suspense. And it does that make sense?
00:06:14
Am I correct in saying that? Yeah.
00:06:16
I think so. I'm I'm definitely with you
00:06:18
there. I, I do think, and I agree
00:06:21
completely, Brandon, I think the history in this book was, you
00:06:24
know, the ratcheted up the best you could possibly do is
00:06:26
ratcheted up and, and the fact that it spanned A wider
00:06:29
timeline, like you said, Chris, the Templar legacy was there's a
00:06:33
hidden secret which leads you to hidden treasure.
00:06:35
Someone wants to get rich. It's a treasure hunt.
00:06:37
And it's based on something the Templars did in this particular
00:06:40
time period, this book, the burning of the library had
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consequences felt for thousands of years, you know, 2000 plus
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years later, you know, to now. So I think the fact that a
00:06:53
historical event, that one is a mystery, a true mystery, no one
00:06:58
agrees what happened to it. Nobody knows what happened to it
00:07:02
that you could explore, but then you can also explore the fallout
00:07:05
of that and what they knew and over centuries how it impacted
00:07:09
the rise of Judaism in ancient days and then the rise of
00:07:12
Christianity and then more recently Islam.
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And then to really link that to what Saudi Arabia and Israel are
00:07:18
doing, that modern day geopolitical posturing.
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I thought you just with the history stuff spanned a much
00:07:24
wider time period that had a lot more implications and definitely
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relate to early 2000s when this book came out.
00:07:31
I'm I'm sure something with Gaza was going off.
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I'm sure a whole lot of, you know, Israeli issues just like
00:07:36
today are going on. Not as big as the war now, but I
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mean, it's a hot button issue. And he was able to tie that back
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to so many different time periods in history.
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And then it was really neat. I like when in this historical
00:07:48
faction, as Brad Thore calls it, you do get to blur the lines a
00:07:52
little bit. And so I was wondering about
00:07:53
these letters between Saint Jerome and Augustine.
00:07:56
Like, how do you think that's even related to the Library of
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Alexandria? But he completely ties that
00:08:02
together, you know, however many centuries later.
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And it's fun to read their words.
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And I'm thinking, is this fake? Is it real?
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And thankfully, he tells us at the end, you know, that was all
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his invention. And so I love when they take
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that creative license. And it naturally ties in so well
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to the plot. So history being tied in, I
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thought was fantastically done. That's the big winner of this
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book. The whole time I'm I'm reading
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this and I'm like, how is he going to prove this?
00:08:27
Like it? Because he's, he's rolling out
00:08:30
all of these different things and it's making you think the
00:08:33
whole time, OK, what if, just what if?
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And you keep thinking. And then and then you get to
00:08:38
that section where you, you're reading this exchange between
00:08:42
Saint Augustine and St. and Saint Jerome.
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And you're like, wait a minute, like, is this like he had me?
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I'm going to, I'm not going to lie.
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He had, he had me, man. And I was.
00:08:53
And I'm reading. And then I get to the, I get,
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you know, the author's note at the end.
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And then you feel like duped, but at the at that point, like
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you're like, that's just a, it's just wonderful storytelling at
00:09:03
that point to be able to, to weave all of these seemingly
00:09:08
different narratives together and all these historical facts
00:09:12
together and, and, and produce something completely brand new.
00:09:15
It's just it's, it's, it's fantastic.
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And that was a little late in the book.
00:09:20
That was definitely past the halfway mark.
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And then even being revealed that, you know, the big bad, the
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villain in the chair, Herman, Was that his name?
00:09:30
Herman. Herman yeah, he is still
00:09:33
needing, he has the letters right.
00:09:35
He and he's had those letters for a while, but he still needs
00:09:38
the original copy of the Old Testament, a pre Christ 2000
00:09:42
plus year old document. And that's why he needs the
00:09:45
library. And that wasn't revealed until
00:09:48
3/4 through the book. So like there was pacing in
00:09:51
terms of rolling out the history that kept me bought in because
00:09:54
all those little connections we didn't even know about through
00:09:57
the first half of the story. We were bought in because of
00:10:00
what's going on with Malone and Pam and Gary.
00:10:03
And I think a big winner of this book is Henrik Thorvaldsen.
00:10:06
Like those characters carried the book so well and blended
00:10:09
with the history and I bought it.
00:10:11
The problem was I don't know how much I bought into Daley's the,
00:10:16
the bad guy, Green's the good guy.
00:10:18
No, Green's the bad guy, Daley's the the good guy.
00:10:20
And then the vice president's the bad guy and Danny Daniels
00:10:23
comes out as a hero and he's the good guy.
00:10:25
There was just a little on the, the domestic side of things,
00:10:28
right? The internal governmental
00:10:30
machinations were just one too many twists and turns, like 2
00:10:34
roller coaster for me. And I guess it kept it kept the
00:10:38
plot moving and I guess there are reasons it needed to be done
00:10:40
and everything got explained away.
00:10:42
There's a little bit of that too, that this Deus Ex mocking
00:10:44
of let's just have something or someone come in and explain the
00:10:48
last four or five action sequences because it didn't make
00:10:51
sense that this guy got shot. It didn't make sense that this
00:10:54
person survived. It didn't make sense that this
00:10:56
person let us live and just walked away.
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Why'd you kidnap Gary and then just let him go?
00:11:00
And there were so many of these potholes in the action I was
00:11:03
thinking about. And then they just explain it
00:11:05
away when we get some new character giving us some
00:11:08
revelatory information. So a little bit too much of that
00:11:11
hand WAVY, explain it away. I'm sure it checks out, but
00:11:14
after that was done 4567 times, I was like, Green's good,
00:11:17
Green's bad, Dale is good, Dale is bad, vice president bad,
00:11:20
president good. I was just a little worn out by
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that and I wanted more of the history.
00:11:26
I think that that piece to to your point about the, the
00:11:30
domestic side of things, I was thinking that, that that was
00:11:33
almost a way I feel like he had to get, you know, I feel like
00:11:36
Steve Barry had to get Cassiopeia VVIT into the story
00:11:39
somehow. And it, and I feel like that was
00:11:42
his way of kind of angling her in, you know, coming, coming to
00:11:47
Stephanie's rest, Stephanie outside the the the Washington
00:11:50
Monument and whatnot. But also to, you know, there's
00:11:54
that that point of I think that's a point in different
00:11:58
espionage novels that I've read where you're trying to create
00:12:01
this era of like people at the top levels of government don't
00:12:05
trust each other and that that becomes a story in and of
00:12:08
itself. But if it's not done well to
00:12:11
your point it just it it can get get your bogged down for sure.
00:12:14
Yeah, it felt a little extra. I, I, I felt like every time,
00:12:19
like there was a couple scenes with Stephanie where like I was
00:12:23
bought in. But most of the time whenever we
00:12:25
cut away from Malone, I was like, no, no, no.
00:12:30
Like I want to go back. And then at the very end, like,
00:12:33
I also want to address your comment, Mike, a little bit.
00:12:35
But at the very end, when we find out, like, George Haddad
00:12:38
reveals that in actuality, like, my quest was much longer and
00:12:42
much harder. Like, I had to make a hard
00:12:44
quest, but not, not too easy, not too hard.
00:12:47
I was like, I would have loved to have seen your quest, you
00:12:49
know, like exactly. I wanted George Haddad the whole
00:12:52
book. Like we spend so much time with
00:12:54
Daley and Green and the president, and it's like, I
00:12:57
would have wanted Haddad doing some of these things or instead
00:13:00
of Sabre, Sabre and Malone having to do all these things
00:13:02
and go on the quest. It's like, why did Georgia not
00:13:05
have to die? No, he's not dead.
00:13:06
So it just felt like another one of those twists, which was a
00:13:10
grand reveal after we had four or five other twists, not to
00:13:14
mention the Pam twist, right? They they dropped that she's an
00:13:17
Israeli spy. I'm thinking, is she knowingly
00:13:21
in on this? And then we'd learn.
00:13:22
It's tied to the watch. So it's really smart writing.
00:13:25
It's almost like that Brad Thore complex of he's too smart
00:13:28
sometimes for for us mere mortals to keep up with how much
00:13:32
they want to pack into this plot.
00:13:34
It all checked out with the watch and the boyfriend who was
00:13:36
the Israeli guy. I get that.
00:13:39
But like it felt just like one too many twists are suspecting
00:13:42
Pam suspecting this person suspecting that person.
00:13:44
Then George Haddad is back. George Haddad set up the whole
00:13:47
thing. It was a wild goose chase.
00:13:49
And then again, hand WAVY. It has to explain that's why the
00:13:51
bodies were taken from the the site in London and that's why
00:13:55
other things were cleaned up and that's why we let you walk and
00:13:58
just got hand WAVY when all that was told to us instead of being
00:14:02
shown to us through through the plot.
00:14:07
Yeah, I I think back to like the the Templar, right, where the
00:14:12
big reveal was. It was his son, right?
00:14:16
Or it was her son right or Stephanie's son right.
00:14:21
But we didn't know that we were in his mind the entire time.
00:14:23
And I guess they it wouldn't have worked because they George,
00:14:28
he pretends like he's dead. But if is there a way that would
00:14:32
have been better If I don't know, not that I want to like
00:14:34
change writing this book, but you know, like, did you like it
00:14:37
better? I guess when we were inside
00:14:40
someone's mind, we didn't know who they were or where we had
00:14:42
this one where everything was playing out in the background.
00:14:44
And then we we got that full exposition dump at the very end.
00:14:47
I don't know. It's two, it's two different
00:14:48
ways of like playing that that style of a plot twist.
00:14:51
I usually lean away. I don't know about you guys from
00:14:54
the exposition dump at the end to explain it all.
00:14:56
There's a few authors who that's very inherent to their their
00:14:59
craft and their style. It's something that I generally
00:15:02
don't like. I I don't feel like Vince often
00:15:04
did that. You knew where you stood with a
00:15:06
Vince Flynn book. You know, as it played out and
00:15:08
at the end you knew why everyone did what they did.
00:15:10
You didn't need a big explanation, but it wasn't too
00:15:13
bad. Here.
00:15:14
I will say that it I'm, I'm, I'm commenting on it.
00:15:16
I don't think it was so heavy-handed to really ruin the
00:15:20
book for me at all. It's it's definitely an amazing
00:15:22
book. I just think those are the
00:15:23
reasons it's slightly below Templar legacy and the other
00:15:27
reason the Templar legacy. I love living in that Abbey,
00:15:31
like you said, with Stephanie Nelson, who happens to be the
00:15:33
grandmaster. I really enjoyed that.
00:15:35
Abby is like a set piece. Herman and his mansion in
00:15:40
Austria. Vienna.
00:15:41
Yeah, it was Austria. Really cool with the butterflies
00:15:44
and all that. What did you think about setting
00:15:46
of this book and the globetrotting?
00:15:48
Because we know that's a big thing about Steve Berry.
00:15:52
Fan of it, especially when, when it's got the, you get the nuance
00:15:58
to it, like you said, the, the butterfly garden in the, in the
00:16:02
mansion, the, the spot, you know, when they're in Portugal
00:16:06
and you know, they're, they're trying to, you know, find the
00:16:09
time of day when the light lines up just right to be able to
00:16:12
reveal the spot on the painting. And then I, I personally love
00:16:16
when you get all that exposition about the, the painting and the,
00:16:21
the, the details of the architecture.
00:16:23
Those are the little things along the way that keep me
00:16:26
invested in, in what's going on And I, I really get a lot out of
00:16:31
that. And and I like, I like when,
00:16:34
when, when you're going to, you know, places that are off, off
00:16:38
the beaten path, so to speak. You know, like this was, you
00:16:41
know, Portugal, you, you know, you get a Middle East, you got
00:16:45
Vienna here. But looking looking ahead at
00:16:49
some of the some of his other, you know, Steve Berry's other
00:16:51
books, you know, he's got some places that I've got really cool
00:16:55
features that to, to get people to buy into a story and really
00:17:00
craft a great setting. So setting was, was solid for
00:17:03
me. I'm a fan of the I'm a fan of
00:17:05
the quest. Basically what I'm saying.
00:17:07
I, I like, I like it when an author gives me like these
00:17:11
little bread crumbs and like, we got to go here and we do this
00:17:14
thing and then we've met our objective here.
00:17:16
We're going to go over to this place and just just keep giving
00:17:19
me that those, those little things.
00:17:21
I can see where you're going. We're trying to find the Library
00:17:25
of Alexandria. Give me all these little details
00:17:27
along the way, even going back to the very beginning of the
00:17:30
novel and they're in the mansion in England and they're trying
00:17:33
to, you know, to find the, the book and everything like that,
00:17:37
that kind of stuff. Give.
00:17:38
Give me that all day. I'm with you.
00:17:42
I specifically think the Portugal scenes and Belem and
00:17:45
that church, the windows, and I think those little quests are
00:17:50
done better than anybody. Any other author I've read does
00:17:54
it. And what Steve Berry does is
00:17:56
like makes it last. A lot of books there's a quest
00:18:03
that's so singular or there's one little puzzle piece or one
00:18:06
little clue. I guess Dan Brown as well.
00:18:08
Dan Brown and Steve Berry I think are the quest guys.
00:18:11
And I love, I love reading that as well.
00:18:13
That's my favorite part of this story probably is all the little
00:18:16
historical clues. Maybe that aspect is done better
00:18:20
here than the Templar legacy. Because in that one I remember
00:18:23
also having some quibbles about there's all these different
00:18:26
mansions across the French countryside and and it wasn't
00:18:29
too distinctive one from the other Here.
00:18:31
It's very distinct. Each location, like going into
00:18:34
Sinai at the end also is like so different than where we just
00:18:38
were in Portugal. And I really do think the
00:18:40
setting is 1 of Steve Berry's strengths and the way he ties
00:18:44
setting to his plot. There's no way the history will
00:18:47
play out as it does if it's not intimately tied to these
00:18:51
locations. And like Brad Thore, real
00:18:53
locations, real research, real artwork, real statues, and you
00:18:57
can go see these things yourself.
00:18:59
I think that's just so exciting. I think that's that's another
00:19:02
hallmark of it too, is you know, when I'm reading this, if I'm
00:19:06
actively Googling the location on my phone while I'm reading
00:19:11
like they did a good job. Me is that you've done a good
00:19:14
job of creating a great setting because I want to.
00:19:16
I want to see it then. Exactly.
00:19:18
Yep, no, I want to. Go you can create a travel guide
00:19:22
if a If a thriller novel could have a travel guide companion,
00:19:25
you know you're doing something right.
00:19:27
Yeah, I think that that's where, you know, some of our other
00:19:30
author authors that we cover that shine with setting.
00:19:34
It's like you, you know, they nail it when you're it looked
00:19:38
like you said, intrigued about looking for wanting to go there.
00:19:41
I to me the the Sinai scenes and the, you know, the construction
00:19:48
of this like, you know, sort of the entrance into the library.
00:19:52
Like to me, that was one of the coolest parts of this book.
00:19:54
Very harken back to, you know, like in the like in the last in
00:20:00
the last book. Going down into the into the
00:20:02
tunnels, finding that, you know, with the booby traps, it's very
00:20:05
Indiana Jones and national treasure esque, you know, like
00:20:10
that stuff. But yeah, 100% agree with the
00:20:12
with the church and then the cabinet line up with, you know,
00:20:15
a certain time and you know, I don't know, I love quest books
00:20:19
and I I hope that I'm assuming that all the books are, are like
00:20:23
this. So I think you I think Steve
00:20:26
Berry has a sucker in me. I'm going to start buying all
00:20:28
the books. Completely.
00:20:31
And Danny Daniels comes on strong and and Chris, Danny
00:20:35
Daniels, good president, really good president so.
00:20:38
It was interesting how he was introduced because we, I guess
00:20:41
we got this perception from Stephanie, right?
00:20:43
And and she, like, you know, thinks he's an idiot, you know,
00:20:47
like, and then I, I just assumed that he was in all of it.
00:20:50
Like I, I just assumed he was part of like the bad cabal, you
00:20:53
know, and then to have that big turn around and for him to, you
00:20:58
know, we didn't even talk about the helicopter scene.
00:21:00
There's 2 helicopter scenes in this book 1 where like you have
00:21:03
the Secret Service come in and and have a shoot out in the
00:21:05
middle of where was that restaurant in the middle of like
00:21:07
West Virginia or. Somewhere outside of Camp David.
00:21:11
Yeah, it was like rural Maryland, or.
00:21:13
Something like that. Yeah.
00:21:14
And then we have the not, not a helicopter scene.
00:21:16
We have the the airplane jump where where Cotton pushes his
00:21:21
wife out of the of the back. But I, I wanted to, I forgot I
00:21:26
wanted to start the show with can you name how many times
00:21:30
someone tells Pam to just wait here 'cause it's I went, I tried
00:21:35
to go through, I, I didn't read the book how you listen to the
00:21:37
audio book, but I tried to go through and it's at least it's
00:21:41
at least 13 times that a character tells Pam to just wait
00:21:46
here and most. Of the time she shut her mouth.
00:21:48
And she doesn't wait. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:21:50
She's she's told to shut her mouth quite a few times, mostly
00:21:54
by Cotton, but I also like how Cotton isn't exactly a St.
00:21:57
He says like I screwed around in my past as well.
00:22:00
It's not all Pam's fault that she slept with this dude, Gary's
00:22:03
father. And and that's another
00:22:05
interesting tidbit. I mean, sometimes the trope can
00:22:08
become these trained spy assassin, whoever you are.
00:22:12
Military guys can't have a family, they can't settle down,
00:22:15
it's too dangerous. But here their family is torn
00:22:18
apart for external reasons. It relates to the job because of
00:22:21
the stress that they were under as a couple.
00:22:23
But it's also like it's not really his biological son, but
00:22:26
is it? And I think that is unique
00:22:30
compared to a lot of other protagonists and their families,
00:22:33
the same way the bookseller is unique.
00:22:35
You know, his his bookshop in Copenhagen, which is rest in
00:22:38
peace. Fun scene there in the opening
00:22:40
too, with with the bombing of the shop and then Pam having to
00:22:42
escape. You kind of forget those early
00:22:44
scenes, even the Bainbridge stuff with which plays a huge
00:22:48
role at the end, getting through the tunnels in the secret
00:22:50
passages in Sinai. I just some of that early stuff
00:22:53
gets forgotten because the book gets a little long winded.
00:22:56
But I think the family dynamics in the last book, it was
00:23:00
Stephanie Nell's family, her relationship with her son and
00:23:03
everything. Here they're really digging into
00:23:05
Cotton's family and as as you know, Brandon throughout the
00:23:08
series that plays a big role, his relationship with his son,
00:23:11
particularly because we go back in time quite a bit in a few
00:23:13
books and now almost what is, what is it 20 plus books in the
00:23:18
series like? There's a lot more story to be
00:23:20
told about this family. I think, I think that was a,
00:23:23
that was a cool dynamic and that was, you know, it made me, it
00:23:28
made me think of like, 'cause I, I finished, I finished Alexandra
00:23:32
Link and then picked up Brad Taylor's 11 Rough Man right
00:23:38
after it. And, you know, he's got a female
00:23:41
companion in that as well. And it it really made me think
00:23:45
about this, a different dynamic. And at first I was like, why?
00:23:51
Why is this lady along for the ride?
00:23:53
Like she was just, she felt like dead weight.
00:23:56
But once, once you find out that she, you know, is involved in
00:24:00
the whole thing, I was like, OK, I kind of get it now.
00:24:03
But also that was, you know, my 1 complaint was like some of the
00:24:07
dialogue between Cotton and her. At times.
00:24:11
I was like, and you know, to your point then, you know, stand
00:24:13
here, wait here, you know, stop talking, that kind of stuff.
00:24:17
I was like that, that if I had one major complaint, it would
00:24:20
be, it would be that just the dialogue between the two of
00:24:23
them. But, you know, I, I like the way
00:24:25
things kind of resolved and, you know, at the end and, and how
00:24:28
she was actually, she became an important part of Cotton, you
00:24:34
know, in his success ultimately at the end.
00:24:37
Yeah, for sure. She I think they not like, you
00:24:43
know, the cliche thing would be they would get back together.
00:24:45
But I think at the very end, they've at least you have come
00:24:47
to some sort of treatise or truth in their hatred for each
00:24:51
other and realizing that, you know, they may not love each
00:24:54
other. They may not, you know, want to
00:24:55
be together anymore, but they definitely love each other.
00:24:57
And they knew they, you know, need to be there for for Gary.
00:25:00
Yeah. It's interesting how this book,
00:25:03
you know, it's set right post 911 Britain 2007, but it
00:25:08
homeless like reads like an old James Bond type novel or like
00:25:13
Indiana Jones, you know, being set in that time period.
00:25:16
I guess because we are going back in the past with, you know,
00:25:19
just some of the content. But I guess, you know, just the
00:25:22
interactions between everybody just seem a lot more don't quite
00:25:26
seem 2007 esque. You know, that makes sense.
00:25:30
Yeah. At the end, he's like, do you
00:25:32
have communication equipment here?
00:25:34
I'm like, OK, be like, do you have cell reception here?
00:25:37
Do you, do you get 5G out here in the middle of Sinai?
00:25:40
Because 2007, that was the first iPod was about to come out.
00:25:44
Like, you know. Yeah, first iPhone.
00:25:46
Is like first iPhone, sorry. It feels like the world of
00:25:48
pagers, you know, where nobody can, like, call anybody on a
00:25:51
cell phone and, like, you don't have full information about
00:25:53
another person. Yeah, it felt a little outdated
00:25:56
for sure. Everybody's still got dial up
00:25:58
access, so Yep. Yeah, good book.
00:26:02
I mean, I didn't like it as much as the Templar Legacy, but from
00:26:06
what I know about the rest of the series, it's definitely top
00:26:09
half. It's like it's above middle of
00:26:11
the pack. So I think this book as a second
00:26:14
book does enough to say I absolutely want to keep going
00:26:17
where sometimes, Chris, you know, on the pod we found second
00:26:20
books to be a little hard to get through.
00:26:21
I wouldn't call this, even though I'm criticizing it, I
00:26:24
wouldn't call this a second book slump at all.
00:26:28
So. Brandon, how many of them have
00:26:29
you read? So I've actually only read
00:26:32
Templar legacy and Alexandria length, but I I picked up the
00:26:37
Venetian betrayal last night. So I guess, you know, Steve, I
00:26:40
think the his next book, it's on the it's something about the
00:26:44
Medicis is is about to be released.
00:26:46
So my live local library had like a huge Steve Berry display
00:26:50
last night when I was there. So I picked that one up is into
00:26:54
which I'm finding I and I started to read it.
00:26:56
So this one's kind of got the, you know, Venetian betrayal
00:26:58
still staying in like that ancient times with Alexander the
00:27:01
Great and stuff like that's the tie in there.
00:27:04
But I wanted to see, you know, how you guys have read, you
00:27:07
know, obviously a couple more of them is the the fire thing at
00:27:10
the beginning of of each novel. Is that like a static thing?
00:27:15
Because the first, the first book you know, starts off with a
00:27:18
fire. The second one starts off with a
00:27:20
fire. The third one starts off he's in
00:27:22
a museum and wakes up surrounded by fire.
00:27:24
I can't remember details well enough to know if it's always a
00:27:27
fire, but I will say there's always that Cotton wants to kind
00:27:31
of just go back and be the bookseller, like the bookshop in
00:27:34
Kogan, and he gets pulled back is like an anchor, and he's
00:27:36
almost always pulled out of there.
00:27:38
So yeah, I, I maybe haven't recognized the fire thing or I
00:27:41
don't remember well enough, but it's like Robert Langdon, you
00:27:44
know, he's he's swimming those laps in the morning, gets the
00:27:47
phone call and you. Know, or it's like Ethan, he's
00:27:50
always just, you know, like, yeah, you know, he gets sent
00:27:53
some tape in the middle of nowhere and it explodes or
00:27:55
something, right? And Brad Thore, it's like Gary
00:27:57
Lawler calling Scott in the Carlton group.
00:28:00
Yeah, I feel like that's part of the hero's journey.
00:28:03
You know, it's the call to action.
00:28:05
It's, you know, the shake up of your comfortable reality.
00:28:08
You're not going to go out and be a hero.
00:28:09
Go on this question list, You you get that call.
00:28:13
So, yeah, that's a good. That's a good point, Brandon.
00:28:15
We're going to look out for that moving forward.
00:28:17
Yeah. I forget.
00:28:18
I forget every book. But it it it's a trope.
00:28:20
It's a trope, definitely that he's pulled out of the
00:28:22
bookstore. Yeah.
00:28:23
Yeah. Because I was, you know, you,
00:28:24
I'm reading the, the, the, the version of the Alexandria link
00:28:28
that I, that I had had, like the, the preview of the Venetian
00:28:31
betrayal in the back of the book.
00:28:33
So naturally, I, I started reading it and I was like, man,
00:28:36
this, this is starting off like eerily similar to leaves
00:28:40
Alexandria, like cause only this time he like is unconscious
00:28:45
inside of a museum in, in Copenhagen and he wakes up in
00:28:50
the museum's on fire and he's got to escape the museum.
00:28:52
So it's like, OK, I wonder if this is going to be a thing
00:28:55
moving forward. Yeah, it's a good, it's a good
00:28:57
catch. The other thing I I think I read
00:28:59
all the Cotton Malone books at various stages.
00:29:02
It's been a while, but I haven't read any of the Cassiopeia
00:29:05
books. I know she got her own spin off
00:29:08
series, Steve Berry and MJ Rose, and they wrote a few books
00:29:12
together in the Cassiopeia series, which I mean, she's so
00:29:15
awesome it's kind of a shame she's sidelined here.
00:29:19
Sure. Like Henrik sending her as
00:29:22
Stephanie Nell's bodyguard, if you will, you know, is cool, but
00:29:26
it really takes a backseat to how awesome she was in the first
00:29:29
book and will be in the future. So I think that's another tiny,
00:29:34
tiny complaint to have about the book is I know where where
00:29:38
Cassiopeia will be moving forward and to not get a lot of
00:29:40
her here was kind of disappointing.
00:29:42
But Henrik Torvaldsen made-up for that for me.
00:29:45
I I thought Henrik and Gary particularly were were
00:29:50
outstanding here. If there was one plot line I
00:29:52
wanted to be pulled away from the main action for it was to
00:29:55
see what Henrik Torvaldsen was doing to one up her mom.
00:29:58
I I thought that was phenom phenomenally done.
00:30:01
He's a, he's a really well done character and he's, he is
00:30:04
always, always like 1 step ahead of, of anything, you know, the,
00:30:10
the antagonist is doing. And there's that, there's a,
00:30:13
that, that scene when him and Gary are hiding out in the
00:30:16
library and they're overhearing that conversation.
00:30:19
It's just so like you, it's, it's so suspenseful and you're
00:30:23
just waiting on them basically to get busted for being there.
00:30:28
You just, you can just tell us it's about to happen and like,
00:30:31
and then to go from that into that, you know, the, the
00:30:34
dialogue, because I believe that's, that's how it happens.
00:30:37
They, they overhear the conversation with the vice
00:30:39
president and then they go, it goes right into the, the letters
00:30:42
between Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine.
00:30:45
And so to to have those two things build off each other,
00:30:49
just that that was a fantastic scene in the book for me.
00:30:52
And to go a step further, the president was talking earlier
00:30:56
with Stephanie Nell about how they're going to catch Daily or
00:30:59
Green to find out who the trader is or if there's another trader
00:31:02
like the vice president. And it's, I think Henrik's phone
00:31:05
call, he because he he calls it into I think Green and then
00:31:10
nothing gets done with that. So the president knows that
00:31:13
Henrik reported this information, but Green doesn't
00:31:16
tell the president. Green goes to the vice president
00:31:19
and use that as the reason to hit daily and try to continue
00:31:22
going after Stephanie. So I think all three plot lines
00:31:24
tied in the history, tied in real well with what Henrik's
00:31:28
doing to try to stop her mom. And then that also tied into the
00:31:31
president trying to do this quasi mole hunt to find out
00:31:34
who's after Stephanie and who's trying to take him down.
00:31:37
And so I I think that was a part of the book.
00:31:39
I really appreciate it if I didn't jive with all three of
00:31:43
these competing storylines at all times.
00:31:46
I am bought into how they interconnect and how they weave
00:31:48
together. It all checks out.
00:31:49
So it's not too big a Ding. Speaking of buying, do you want
00:31:53
to you want to get into the scorecard, Mike?
00:31:55
Let's do it, Let's do it. Brandon, how familiar are you
00:31:57
with the scorecard? We can walk you through it as we
00:31:59
go. I think you're going to have to
00:32:01
walk me through it, guys. I'm familiar with your
00:32:03
scorecard, but I do not remember everything that is on your
00:32:06
scorecard. Sure.
00:32:08
We're going to get 50 points. I'm going to insert a column to
00:32:11
the left and we're going to give you a little column here on our
00:32:14
sheet. You can't see, but I don't see.
00:32:16
So it's 50 points. 1st 2 are 10 points.
00:32:21
That's action slash suspense. We've had to add that with doing
00:32:26
some of these books like this. The second one is plot.
00:32:32
Third one is buy in. Mike, you do the best of
00:32:35
describing like buy in. Well, you want to do it as we
00:32:38
go. We'll start with action plot for
00:32:39
10 points. All right, Yeah, let's do that.
00:32:43
All right, let's. What do you say, Brandon?
00:32:44
You're a guest. 10 points. What do you give action?
00:32:46
A plot for the Alexandria link. Action and plot I'm going to go
00:32:50
can I do half points? Yes.
00:32:53
If the committee approves, yes, I'm.
00:32:55
Going to go 8.5 there. I, I'd like the, the action was
00:32:59
fast-paced, you know, from from start to finish.
00:33:03
But some of the action scenes like like you had mentioned
00:33:07
earlier, it's kind of like where, where are we going with
00:33:10
this? Like it just kind of felt like
00:33:12
we needed to have some sort of a shootout or a helicopter scene
00:33:16
here at some point. So I'm going to go, we'll go 8.5
00:33:21
with that. I did, I do think the, the
00:33:24
opening sequence of, you know, Saber and his squad trying to
00:33:30
flush Cotton and and Pam out of the the bookshop.
00:33:33
I thought that was particularly well done.
00:33:36
But yeah, 8 point. 5 for me. Fair.
00:33:39
Good score, good score. Fair you, Mike.
00:33:43
I agree. It's in that range.
00:33:45
I'm going to go slightly lower. I'm not going to give it that
00:33:46
extra half, so I'm going to go down to 8.
00:33:49
I do think that opening scene might have been my favorite of
00:33:53
the action, kind of gets drowned out if you forget about it later
00:33:55
on. But it was really gripping way
00:33:57
to open the book. I think a couple of them seemed
00:34:01
inconsequential, like Gary being taken.
00:34:04
I thought that was a real interesting showdown of him
00:34:06
being kidnapped and then the kidnapper.
00:34:08
But then it just kind of falls apart.
00:34:10
You get explained like I, we let him get away anyway.
00:34:12
It's part of the plan. So too many of the action scenes
00:34:15
ended up being a little inconsequential, and maybe
00:34:17
because I remembered something about that I didn't buy in as
00:34:19
much as I was reading it. So I'm just going to go 8 on
00:34:22
action. Yeah, we normally don't do point
00:34:25
like .2 fives, but I'm like kind of in the middle of you 2.
00:34:28
But I guess I guess I'll round up to to 8.5.
00:34:31
I'll be with you right now. You know, just you know, it's
00:34:35
it's solid. I think there's some definite
00:34:38
plot holes and some some things that I wasn't driving with all
00:34:42
throughout. And so because of that, I, I,
00:34:44
I'm going to, I'm digging a point in half, so.
00:34:49
Plot 10 points for the plot. It could this could include
00:34:52
pacing, a little bit of dialogue and just the general overview of
00:34:57
did you buy into this idea of the lost scrolls of at the
00:35:00
Alexandria library directly were impacting, you know, the Saudis
00:35:04
bulldozing this town and the Israelis claiming the land of
00:35:08
Palestine. What do you think about the
00:35:10
whole plot? Brandon 10 points.
00:35:14
Good 9 here, you know, like I said before quest man, give me
00:35:18
give me all those little bread crumbs that live that are
00:35:20
leading me to the the library of Alexandria.
00:35:24
The only thing that I mentioned this earlier that I didn't I
00:35:26
didn't buy into all the way is, you know, the the lack of trust
00:35:31
or the the feigned lack of trust at the high levels of
00:35:34
government. You know that that part of like
00:35:36
the all the different levels of subterfuge and you know, he
00:35:39
thinks that I know that I'm going to go do this and like,
00:35:43
what is it called game theory or something like that and trying
00:35:47
to anticipate your, your opponent's next move like that.
00:35:50
That part wasn't, wasn't it for me.
00:35:51
But if, if, if that part, you know, if you, if you take
00:35:55
because it felt like those you have the main Cotton and Pam
00:35:58
storyline, obviously, and then you have the, the Cassiopeia and
00:36:02
Stephanie storylines running parallel to each other.
00:36:05
If you just gave me Cotton and Pam, I'm still probably going to
00:36:08
give it a nine to. Sure.
00:36:12
Yeah, I think like that's, you know, this is I'm and this is
00:36:17
bleeding into the body. Like I'm love, love the quest,
00:36:20
love the idea of the quest. I think it got bogged down with,
00:36:24
you know, the this sort of third action.
00:36:26
I I, I, I do enjoy the Torkelson and you know, that they sort of
00:36:33
the Austria scenes and that kind of stuff.
00:36:36
But, you know, I'm just the whole domestic side of it.
00:36:39
But I understand that they could kind of like, now you're saying
00:36:42
that I didn't realize that daily was going to become an important
00:36:44
character down the road. So like, I guess in retrospect,
00:36:48
like some of this domestic stuff is more important than you
00:36:50
actually think while you're reading the novel.
00:36:53
But yeah, so I think I'm going to, I'm going to go a little bit
00:36:56
lower. I'm going to go and eat.
00:37:00
Yeah, I, I, I want to go lower than an 8 because that's like
00:37:04
somebody has to come in and just like fix everything or explain
00:37:07
it away. And like, Haddad was the
00:37:08
librarian at the end, I thought was just a little cheap to like
00:37:12
that he masterminded this whole thing so that Pam, Saber and
00:37:15
Cotton would come there together.
00:37:17
He expected them to come together and then he was going
00:37:19
to work it all. All that, yes, is where I'm
00:37:23
going to dig it. But I, I really don't think I
00:37:24
can go lower than an 8 because I absolutely bought into all the
00:37:29
Old Testament stuff. Like we said, the writings of
00:37:31
Jerome and Agustin absolutely bought into it.
00:37:34
All the little clues to put the puzzle pieces together to find a
00:37:37
copy of this Old Testament and where the translations wrong and
00:37:40
the implications of what could happen if the translations were
00:37:44
the the correct translation was uncovered.
00:37:46
And indeed, the Holy Land for Jews and possibly Christians is
00:37:51
in Saudi Arabia, where Mecca is. It sounds preposterous, but
00:37:56
Steve Berry packaged that up with all the historical details
00:37:59
and. But all of that is based on
00:38:01
like, I mean, it's not based on truth.
00:38:02
It's based on like or that book Like I I like.
00:38:05
That's the other thing I feel like with Steve Berry, at least
00:38:08
what he did from the Knights Templar in this one, is that it
00:38:11
seems like he finds that like one text that he reads and he's
00:38:17
like, wow, boom. I like that.
00:38:18
I'm going to make a story out of it.
00:38:19
And then, you know, obviously he does all of his research around
00:38:22
it, but that one text is very, very central.
00:38:25
And then he obviously takes creative license, you know, like
00:38:27
with with the notes. But I liked how, and it's kind
00:38:31
of like doing the service of like, Hey, I read this.
00:38:33
I liked it so much. I think you should go read this
00:38:36
this novel to read some of my my resources.
00:38:39
So. And maybe it's true that he
00:38:41
finds that element of the maybe it's true like you could you
00:38:45
could read so much stuff be like wild conspiracy theories.
00:38:47
This is all a fake novel fiction.
00:38:49
I don't like it. Or you could say, what can we
00:38:51
learn from this? You don't have to buy it hook,
00:38:54
line and sinker. The whole theory doesn't have to
00:38:56
check it every fact. I don't I'm not an expert who's
00:38:58
going to say it's right or wrong, but I can enjoy the
00:39:00
theory. And what if it's true?
00:39:03
It is. This is like what if.
00:39:04
This is like the Marvel Universe is what if for historical
00:39:07
thrillers. It's and it's incredible because
00:39:10
every single one of those stories has an element of truth
00:39:13
like the what if works because there's something about that
00:39:16
superhero or character that you could see really playing out
00:39:19
this way. And it doesn't in the regular
00:39:20
MCU. But let's go tell some wild
00:39:23
stories of if it did well, all these things that Steve Berry's
00:39:26
writing and researching maybe didn't happen in our reality, in
00:39:29
our universe historically, exactly as described.
00:39:33
But we can really play with this idea of if it's true, what would
00:39:36
it have meant for the world today?
00:39:37
How would it have impacted, you know, the Middle Eastern
00:39:41
politics going back to 1948 in the Nakba?
00:39:43
So I, I, I absolutely love that part.
00:39:46
So I want to Ding plot for a couple things that pulls me up a
00:39:49
little. So I'm going to stick with that.
00:39:51
8 And it also pulls me up on buy and I'm going to be a little
00:39:54
more friendly here. I know I've been negative, but
00:39:58
I'm going to go 4 out of five on buy and buy in Brandon's five
00:40:00
points. And it's a combination of.
00:40:03
Did you buy into just what the plot is selling, what the
00:40:06
motivations are of the characters and how it's
00:40:08
progressing? But buy in could also be as you
00:40:11
were reading it as a reader, where you bought in, did the
00:40:14
book like catch your attention? So I'm making up ground there.
00:40:17
This might be a three on. I don't care about daily.
00:40:19
I don't care about green. A couple of like too many
00:40:21
reveals, too many of these random twists out of the blue
00:40:24
that explained things away kind of ticked me off.
00:40:27
But I'm making up for that because as I'm reading it, I'm
00:40:29
like, Oh my God, you know, this is explosive and I want to know
00:40:32
more. So I'm going 4 out of five on
00:40:34
buy in. I think I'd have to go a four
00:40:38
there as well. In Full disclosure, I started
00:40:41
and stopped reading this a couple of different times.
00:40:44
I grabbed it from the library, you know, months ago, read like
00:40:49
that opening sequence with with George Haddad and the what's the
00:40:55
guardian who shows up? And that was as far as I got and
00:41:00
then got it, you know, this, you know, back in May and, and, and
00:41:03
just blew through it. I don't know what it was that
00:41:06
caused me to stop reading the first time, but the second time,
00:41:09
like I was, I was hooked from start to finish.
00:41:12
Like I wanted to like I was rooting for Cotton to to, you
00:41:18
know, to make his way, you know, through all the different, you
00:41:22
know, pieces of his little quest there.
00:41:25
And, and I was I was invested in, I was invested in what was
00:41:30
happening next. Like I wanted to see, you know,
00:41:34
where do we go from Belem? You know, what it what it and
00:41:37
the the payoff is going to be. I get to see what the library of
00:41:42
Alexandria looks like coming from, you know, Steve Berry's
00:41:45
mind. Like that for me is a huge
00:41:47
payoff. You know, you have nobody knows
00:41:50
what this thing actually looked like, what all was there.
00:41:53
But we get to see, you know, what is, how is he going to
00:41:56
portray this, this wonder of the ancient world?
00:42:00
So, you know, I'm, I'm going to go for there too, just because
00:42:02
I, I wanted to, I, I was invested in the payoff at the
00:42:06
end. And the Guardians were so cool.
00:42:09
You mentioned the Guardians the way that they can invite people
00:42:12
like one or two every century or whatever it was.
00:42:16
I I thought the Guardians and how they've kept us alive is the
00:42:18
coolest thing ever. Yeah, that and like the lore
00:42:22
that like, you know, naming all of these famous intellectual
00:42:25
people throughout history, like they were selected by Guardians.
00:42:30
Yeah, they were invited. Ben Franklin, Copernicus, like,
00:42:34
you know, essentially all of our ancient, I guess, fathers of,
00:42:40
of, you know, various institutions, right.
00:42:44
Yeah, I'm, I'm with you guys on the floor.
00:42:45
I, I think you guys have said it all.
00:42:47
It's I couldn't stop reading this book.
00:42:51
Like I crushed it. I I started reading it on my
00:42:54
drive home from the beach on Sunday and then just blew
00:43:00
through it and it's a long book. It is, yeah.
00:43:05
I, I could not put it down. So their next category is
00:43:09
villains, bad guys. So who, who is the bad guy here?
00:43:14
I guess it's, it's green. It's the vice president.
00:43:18
It's what's his name the the Austrian guy.
00:43:22
Sabre. Well, Sabre?
00:43:24
Yeah, Herman, Yeah. What?
00:43:26
What did you guys, I don't know, Brandon Eagle first.
00:43:28
What did you think of this cabal of of various bad guys?
00:43:33
5. Points also this this one might
00:43:37
I might go a little bit lower on because I feel like the the
00:43:43
order of the order of the Golden Fleece and the the talons of the
00:43:46
Eagle. I feel he left.
00:43:49
I feel like Steve Berry left a little bit on the table there.
00:43:52
I feel like they're they could have done a lot more with that.
00:43:56
And the way that he set it up in the beginning before you find
00:44:02
out that Henrik Thorvaldsen is, is a part of it, it it it had
00:44:07
the potential to to it really feels ominous.
00:44:12
And then once you find out that Thorvaldsen's in it and he's
00:44:17
like a force for good in it, it kind of feels like it loses a
00:44:20
little bit of its its teeth and and Dominic Sabre kind of just
00:44:25
was the I don't know. He felt like too too
00:44:29
stereotypical, like bad guy in AI.
00:44:32
Don't know. He just he just didn't do it for
00:44:35
me. He he just didn't play play the
00:44:39
foil to to Cotton Malone at that point in time.
00:44:42
And like I said before, the, you know, with Green in the, the
00:44:46
domestic side of things, at first I thought he was, I
00:44:50
thought he was the good guy. I thought.
00:44:51
He was good. I thought he was going to help
00:44:53
Stephanie. Yeah, I actually really, I was
00:44:54
like, oh, I like this character. Like the scene where they where
00:44:57
they show up at at his house in in the middle of the night.
00:45:00
Exactly. You know, he's hiding, helping
00:45:02
them hide out there. And I'm thinking the whole time,
00:45:05
OK, Oh, this guy really isn't that bad.
00:45:07
Like he's kind of, you know, he's going to work with
00:45:09
Stephanie and you know, but I think I just feel like there was
00:45:15
there was something that could have been done to make the order
00:45:18
of the golden Fleece and the talons of the eagle just a
00:45:21
little bit more. I guess the word would be give
00:45:24
it, give it more teeth, like give them more fierce.
00:45:27
Yes, that you know, more almost more like, I don't know, like
00:45:31
that evil shadow organization. But I, I do like the fact that
00:45:38
Thorwaldsson, like he's infiltrated it basically.
00:45:42
So you've got a man on the inside, you know, working for
00:45:44
you too. So kind of go, I'm going to go 3
00:45:47
on this one. OK.
00:45:50
Yeah. Yeah, You know, you know, what's
00:45:52
funny is that I, I thought every time they referenced the Towns
00:45:55
of the Eagles, I like, kind of like laughed because it was.
00:46:00
It's like what how do you have someone named the towns of the
00:46:03
Eagle? And it's like Dominic Saber,
00:46:07
like, I don't know, he was so swirmy and and slimy and you
00:46:12
know, I guess, you know, he had this special forces background.
00:46:16
Obviously he's he's think he's super smart.
00:46:18
He's able to outsmart all these people.
00:46:21
He just didn't fulfill like those shoes that I think Steve
00:46:25
Barry wanted him to be like. So I'm definitely agreeing
00:46:29
there. And I was shocked.
00:46:32
Like it was a jaw-dropping moment when Dorclason said oh,
00:46:35
like, I'm, I'm in it. And then I was like, wait, is he
00:46:39
bad? Like.
00:46:40
Yeah, that was big. But then I, I think, you know,
00:46:44
while it's cool, you know, I liked everything there.
00:46:46
I definitely think you're right. But it like kind of undercuts
00:46:51
the big bad of it of all this, you know, like the Spectre, you
00:46:55
know, organization, because essentially they're just rich
00:46:59
guys who want to make make money right there.
00:47:02
The only one who's willing to kill anybody is is, you know,
00:47:06
the blue chair, like the blue chair.
00:47:08
That was intriguing when we're starting it off, you know, like
00:47:10
the explaining the circle and you know, the they put on this
00:47:14
chain with the fleece and the different chairs and there's a
00:47:17
blue chair. Like I was like, oh, sick, this
00:47:19
is cool. And then it just kind of fell
00:47:22
fell a little flat for me. So I'll I'll see you with the
00:47:25
three. I agree with you.
00:47:25
I. Agree.
00:47:26
They're gathering. At first we're referring to them
00:47:29
as the blue chair and then the other robes.
00:47:32
I thought, this is like some super secret Society of these
00:47:35
power brokers and these elites. Then we never really see them
00:47:38
interact. There's a few conversations,
00:47:40
very short dialogue, like at the table, but it's very clear that
00:47:45
he just wants to hijack it for himself.
00:47:47
And I would have liked like a cabal of these people, each who
00:47:50
play a role, you know, pulling strings, maybe someone
00:47:54
challenging his authority, stepping up to the plate a
00:47:57
little more inner dynamics of that group, creating that fear
00:48:01
that or maybe Henrik Torvaldsson to also be in a little bit more
00:48:04
fear because he's just kind of freewheel.
00:48:06
And I, I get that he brought Gary as like this kind of
00:48:09
safeguard, almost this insurance plan of like, you can't touch me
00:48:13
because I'm here and everybody's watching and all the other
00:48:15
chairs will know what you do. But I thought the stakes could
00:48:18
have just been a little higher moving about the mansion and and
00:48:21
like when they had a face to face, I was didn't feel like the
00:48:24
highest stakes. And I think Brandon, that goes
00:48:26
to your point of like it didn't instill that fear in me.
00:48:29
And then Dominic Sabre, same thing.
00:48:31
He was playing as this McClellan with his real name, whatever it
00:48:34
was. So the whole time I'm not really
00:48:36
too fearful of him because he just seems almost clownish and
00:48:41
he never really showcases his skills in a in a truly scary
00:48:45
way. He was too.
00:48:47
He was almost too reliant on, he couldn't, he couldn't make moves
00:48:50
independently. He, he was too reliant on, you
00:48:54
know, having to mirror whatever Cotton was doing.
00:48:57
And because of that, he just, he couldn't, you know, he couldn't
00:49:00
act as an independent contractor.
00:49:03
And none of the other hench men his hench men.
00:49:05
He just offs a few of them I guess.
00:49:08
That's the only time I guess we're supposed to really feel
00:49:11
true, you know, fear for him in, in the sense that, you know, he
00:49:16
sends, like, in the 11 case, right?
00:49:18
He sends these two people in and then he comes in and shoots
00:49:21
them. And then that's to try to get on
00:49:23
Malone's good side, you know, sort of like a showcase of, oh,
00:49:26
shit, he's this guy's crazy. But I don't know, it just.
00:49:30
Yeah. He even kills the guy who took
00:49:32
Gary towards the beginning right when they're handing off Gary.
00:49:36
I just feel like one too many times we don't see him operate.
00:49:38
We just seen him see him clean up and I feel like if he had to
00:49:42
do some intense operations I might have been more bought into
00:49:48
his his skill set. I kind of was OK with the idea
00:49:52
though of he had the quest so he knew certain things.
00:49:56
Cotton couldn't complete his quest without him, but he
00:49:59
couldn't complete it without Cotton and his mind the only
00:50:02
reason. He has the quest is because of
00:50:04
George Haddad. Let him have it.
00:50:06
That's, that was my my problem, which was like, that was all
00:50:09
just undone by George. Haddad wanted to get him here.
00:50:12
I thought that was a cop out, one too many of those cop outs.
00:50:16
But yeah, if we're just going with villains, 3 is probably
00:50:20
yeah, I'll join you guys. 3 is probably it.
00:50:25
Good guys. We're going to make up some
00:50:26
ground, though. Am I going 5?
00:50:30
I might. A Cassiopeia was kind of given a
00:50:33
back seat. I got to go 4 1/2.
00:50:37
Dang it for not yeah, she's one of my favorite characters from
00:50:40
the last book. I don't know, like, you know,
00:50:44
even though like Pam was a little annoying, like I I
00:50:46
thought that, you know, she was kind of needed because Cotton
00:50:49
can be pretty like, like arrogant and it was kind of like
00:50:53
Comic Relief. I think getting to see
00:50:56
Thorgleston more, you know, while he was a big player in the
00:50:59
last book, like I think he he definitely shined more, you
00:51:02
know, closet, you know, I'm going to I might just steal him
00:51:06
right now for my free space. But you know, Gary Malone, you
00:51:09
know, just especially the I don't know if you listen to
00:51:12
audiobooks at all, but the way that Scott Brick, he's the the
00:51:17
narrator for this this series, the the way he speaks Gary's
00:51:23
dialogue, he he speaks like a younger, essentially a younger
00:51:26
Cotton yes, and he nails like. He does.
00:51:29
It's. Great.
00:51:30
And he has like the same arrogance, even though, like we
00:51:33
find out that, you know, Gary doesn't have any blood of, of
00:51:36
cotton. He is Cotton's son because, you
00:51:38
know, he's cotton. Yeah, so.
00:51:41
And when he, when he attacks the guy, Cotton's even like he's
00:51:44
like, I want to chastise him. Like I don't want him to be in
00:51:46
danger, but he's like, that's my boy.
00:51:48
I'm proud. I'm proud of him.
00:51:49
Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:51
I think we got five. Wow.
00:51:56
I think I'm going to go, I'm going to go 4 1/2 on this one
00:51:58
too. There were, like I mentioned
00:52:00
before, it's just some of the, some of the dialogue between
00:52:03
Cotton and Pam kind of drove me nuts a little bit.
00:52:06
But I, I did really like the emergence of of Henrik Thorvall
00:52:09
Thorvinson in this one. You know, like you said, he was
00:52:12
a big player in the first one, but just his role, his role in
00:52:16
this one felt so integral to the plot that I and I just really
00:52:21
like the, the emergence of his character and, and being being a
00:52:25
guy, you know, on the inside of that, of the Order of the Golden
00:52:32
Fleece. Like just, yeah, he's, he's like
00:52:34
your ultimate trump card. Like, he's the best.
00:52:36
He's the best friend you could have, like in your back pocket,
00:52:39
really. Right.
00:52:40
Yeah, agreed. I think those are the two
00:52:42
winners, Henrik and Gary. Another Ding on bad guys not to
00:52:46
take us back but it it reminded me is the Austrian's daughter
00:52:53
who I feel like Steve Berry just got so annoyed in writing this
00:52:57
character that he just like decided to write her off book
00:52:59
and have Doris and kidnap her and she never shows up again.
00:53:03
It was weak. I completely forgot that she was
00:53:06
even in the book. Yeah, exactly.
00:53:07
It was weak, but there's this. They just.
00:53:09
Needed her as a bargaining chip. Yeah, but they're setting it up
00:53:12
to be like this in the beginning, like they were
00:53:14
setting up this dialogue between her and her dad, right?
00:53:17
And that you know. She might take over.
00:53:18
Or you know, I, I, I thought there was going to be like a
00:53:20
Game of Thrones style, you know, there's so many players in this
00:53:23
thing, like who's backstabbing who, you know, so.
00:53:27
I no, I agree with you. I was thinking the setup was
00:53:30
there. They even talked about how
00:53:31
letting women into the order, the golden right happened, and
00:53:34
that allowed her to gain a position where it could one day
00:53:37
happen. She was going to make moves.
00:53:39
I I think that was mishandled. Yeah, you're right.
00:53:44
Another winner, a dark horse winner though, and reason why I
00:53:46
like that 4 1/2 score for good guys.
00:53:49
Danny Daniels comes on strong. I was like they said, Chris, I
00:53:53
wasn't sure at first. Is he good?
00:53:54
Is he bad? Is he a note?
00:53:55
Is he a nothing president? He even says like Stephanie, you
00:53:58
think I'm weak and feeble and you know, I'm a second term
00:54:01
president. You think I, you know, not going
00:54:03
to get anything done. I'm lame duck.
00:54:05
And he just, he just essentially just drops his Dick on the
00:54:08
table. Like he just lays it all out
00:54:10
there. He's like, boom, he, he just
00:54:13
puts it all out there and I, I, he lays the smack down on
00:54:19
attorney general. Is that what Daley was or Green?
00:54:22
Who's in charge of majority was now attorney Stephanie Guitar.
00:54:25
General Daley was the DNI, or Deputy D.
00:54:28
And I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:54:30
Well, I just think he just puts it all out there, comes on
00:54:33
strong, definitely has a presence and.
00:54:35
And Camp Davidson is always enjoyable.
00:54:37
I thought that was a, a nice little scene, the conversations
00:54:41
with Stephanie and he filled in the gaps and he ultimately knew
00:54:43
more than he was letting on. And so I, I thought Danny
00:54:46
Daniels could be a, you know, a dark horse for one of the better
00:54:49
good guys. Yeah, good, Good call.
00:54:52
All right. We kind of already talked about
00:54:55
it, but you know, I guess we got to give it a score.
00:54:57
What did you guys think of the setting?
00:54:59
This is also out of five. Settings A5 for me Yeah, You got
00:55:04
the you got Bill M you've got the the Western Sinai.
00:55:09
And like I said, anytime you can take me to one of those off the
00:55:13
beaten path places, you you give me all the little the
00:55:17
descriptions are there and if I'm actively looking it up while
00:55:21
I'm reading, you've done your job. 5 for seven for me.
00:55:25
Yeah, 100%, you said. Well, what about you, Mike?
00:55:30
Really. You're not going 5 I'm.
00:55:35
Going to go 4 1/2. I think there's a game in there.
00:55:39
I and I can't put my finger on what the Ding is.
00:55:42
You know, it's like it factor. It's the IT factor.
00:55:46
It's like there's a 10th of a point in a couple of different
00:55:49
spots and it all adds up. For example, I like the
00:55:51
Bainbridge house. I was so bought into his mansion
00:55:54
in the beginning in the statue and like I thought all the
00:55:57
little clues and puzzles were going to be there.
00:55:59
And a big part of the book is going to be decoding that, you
00:56:03
know, that house and then it like tangentially gets mentioned
00:56:08
at the end and he remembers the sequence of letters and helps
00:56:11
him do the thing. So I felt like it was good, but
00:56:14
it could have been great. And how it gets tied in later.
00:56:17
I thought Bell M was the best part.
00:56:19
Portugal, if he did the way he did that was, was it a cathedral
00:56:23
or a monastery? That big monastery down there.
00:56:29
If I thought a couple other scenes were as good as that one
00:56:31
was, I would easily go 5. But all the other ones had like
00:56:34
1/10 of a point missing. For example, in Vienna with him
00:56:39
sitting in the in the garden with the butterflies, I thought
00:56:41
could be a 5 out of five, but then I didn't know where Henrik
00:56:46
and Gary were at the time. It's like, and then there's that
00:56:49
big library or area where he has the the books that they steal or
00:56:53
the documents that they steal, I couldn't quite picture of.
00:56:56
Like it's this mansion with this garden with these other rooms.
00:56:59
And I'm sure these chambers were all the order of the Golden
00:57:01
Fleece people are living. It could have been like a really
00:57:04
cool set action piece, but I couldn't picture it.
00:57:06
I didn't think there was enough descriptive language about how
00:57:09
you move about this building and how you move about the space.
00:57:11
We were just told we're in the gardens at the mansion and then
00:57:14
we're in this room at the mansion.
00:57:15
Then we're in this room at the mansion.
00:57:17
And I only have like a quasi sense of what it's like.
00:57:20
So I think there's just I, I can't put my finger exactly on
00:57:23
it, but it's, it's, it's not as good as I know Steve Berry can
00:57:26
do. And as I've seen some other
00:57:28
authors do, like when Brad Thor's hitting at his finest, I
00:57:31
just feel like this does not have that edge.
00:57:34
So 4 1/2 not a big thing. So we love covers on this
00:57:40
podcast. We love him so much.
00:57:43
We love to judge the cover by the book.
00:57:46
And so this is out of five points and here we.
00:57:50
Go. It's more so one.
00:57:54
Is it a good cover, you know, do you think?
00:57:56
But does does it ring true to what the essence of the book is?
00:58:01
I don't know. We, we kind of started down this
00:58:04
rabbit hole because, well, one, we started this podcast during
00:58:07
COVID and we were just trying to like figure out like, you know,
00:58:10
like what we're doing. We start talking about covers.
00:58:13
And in the beginning we talked about Mitch rap and for some
00:58:19
reason there was always one cover.
00:58:21
It was typically like the mass market paperback that would just
00:58:25
have like something completely random, like like a guy walking
00:58:29
through power lines or a train in the snow when there was no
00:58:34
train or snow in the entire novel.
00:58:35
The novel took place in the desert, you know, and we would
00:58:39
just crap on these novels. And so they kind of like became
00:58:42
our our shtick. And so now we we do it.
00:58:44
It's part of the scorecard here. So, you know, I we definitely
00:58:47
heavily weight the AB and C covers because those are those
00:58:51
tend to be the obviously A is the initial hardcover, B is
00:58:56
typically the the second year paperback and then C is some
00:59:02
sometimes it's the. Like a reprint.
00:59:05
A reprint. So I don't know, Brandon, why
00:59:07
don't you, since you're a guest, you give us your first take on
00:59:10
the covers? So am I?
00:59:13
Am I giving a score on the cover out of five or?
00:59:16
Potentially, yes, yes. Eventually, yes, but we want to
00:59:19
know like you can vamp, vamp about like.
00:59:24
Heavily. Your score heavily has to be
00:59:26
relying on really A&B because those are the most well known
00:59:29
covers. What if there's something in the
00:59:31
others that calls out to you? That could be a boost or a Ding.
00:59:34
Got it. I got to be honest, guys, I'm
00:59:37
not a fan of these covers really.
00:59:41
I I don't know like B. So cover B is is the one I had
00:59:49
and I don't know what it is but like if I'm looking at if I'm
00:59:55
looking at BI, can't really tell it just looks like a cave to me.
01:00:00
Yeah, you're right. You know, it just looks, it just
01:00:02
looks like a cave. So I, I think, you know, I'm,
01:00:08
I'm biased because that's the one that I read.
01:00:10
Sure, no, that that definitely. But I do like that happened
01:00:14
before. I, but I do, I do like the
01:00:20
aspect of a because you, you can clearly see something is burning
01:00:25
there. But you also need the context of
01:00:29
OK, I need to know that the library of Alexandria burned.
01:00:33
So I feel like I, I don't know what my suggestion would be to,
01:00:39
to change it or or improve it, but I feel like you here's what
01:00:46
here's what you can get out of it.
01:00:48
If you look at it, you're like, I'm, I'm going to probably going
01:00:51
to be reading some sort of adventure novel.
01:00:53
If I'm unfamiliar with Steve Berry, I can tell that I'm
01:00:56
getting myself into some sort of something dealing with ancient
01:01:00
history. It it looks, it just got the old
01:01:03
look. I can see it looks like I'm not
01:01:05
sure what you know and B what what script we've got there let
01:01:10
you know underneath where it says the Alexandria link.
01:01:12
But no, it's in terms of of overall covers, guys, I'm, I'm
01:01:18
looking at like a 2 1/2 and they just don't do it for me.
01:01:21
They just don't pop. They just don't pop.
01:01:26
All right, Mike, I feel. Like I'm given the sense I'm
01:01:28
annoyed. No, I I hear you on all of it.
01:01:32
All of your individual points are really valid.
01:01:34
I think the one bit of context I'm going to add is that, like
01:01:39
Chris was saying, we've seen some covers that totally missed
01:01:42
the mark. It would be as if.
01:01:44
No, see, that's the problem. He doesn't have our context of.
01:01:48
Exactly. How many episodes have we done?
01:01:50
And and so, yeah, I could see coming in.
01:01:53
Yeah, you're 100% correct. I guess our our problem is we
01:01:57
we've seen. Oh, so bad.
01:01:59
It was bad stuff. And and the biggest reason is we
01:02:03
call judge a cover by the book. It has to be by the book, and I
01:02:05
think every single one of these checks off that we got the
01:02:09
scroll. We've got the buildings, which
01:02:12
definitely recall of ancient buildings.
01:02:13
We got the fire which the Alexandria library, the burning
01:02:16
book in in cover E. So I oh, and then like the
01:02:21
mystery hunt of cover. HI think the fact that all of
01:02:24
them do tie back to that historical quest mystery and
01:02:27
heavily related to an ancient building and texts and scrolls
01:02:31
and and documents and parchments.
01:02:34
I think I have to give it cred for that.
01:02:36
I really I really got to got to give it to that.
01:02:38
And just from a design perspective, 100% can't agree
01:02:41
more. B is absolute trash.
01:02:44
I would never want to pick that book up if I saw that in a
01:02:47
Hudson news or an airport stand. But the opposite is also true of
01:02:52
a. That would be one of my first go
01:02:54
TOS if I saw it on a stand. So I'm with you in a lot of
01:02:59
ways, Brandon. I really am, but I'm also trying
01:03:01
to find ways to give it credit. And the last thing I'll say
01:03:05
cover C is so Steve Berry, it's unbelievable.
01:03:08
I don't know what the coin is in reference to.
01:03:11
I'm assuming Alexander. So if that indeed is Alexander,
01:03:15
there weren't many coins in this book, but that becomes a running
01:03:18
theme on a lot of stamp, like an imprint on a, what do you call
01:03:22
it on a wax, you know, to seal letters.
01:03:25
So there's a little bit of a running theme there.
01:03:27
And I think that plus just the design of a, the aesthetics of a
01:03:31
combined with the fact that it's actually showing an old ancient
01:03:34
building burning and the red, the red and the orange is like a
01:03:39
theme. And I kind of think that theme
01:03:41
and color scheme works because of all that.
01:03:43
I'm going to bump to 3 1/2. 3 1/2.
01:03:47
I am going a bit higher, Chris, the deciding voice in the
01:03:53
debate. Yeah, I'm like I'm right in the
01:03:56
middle of you guys. I'm a three.
01:03:58
I think you're right. Cover B worst of the lot.
01:04:03
You know, you really have to. Maybe it's just because it's so
01:04:05
small. And if you, if I had it, I could
01:04:07
realize that I guess these are supposed to be hieroglyphs or,
01:04:11
you know, some sort of, but it just looks like a cave.
01:04:15
Like you said, it just looks like a cave.
01:04:16
I wouldn't be able to tell it. Something's burning in there.
01:04:18
Like that's supposed to be the library.
01:04:20
I I do think cover A is probably the best out of all of them.
01:04:24
I'm surprised they didn't go with this.
01:04:25
Wasn't there a lighthouse in Alexandria?
01:04:27
Like they didn't go with like, you know, showing like from the
01:04:30
lighthouse scheme, like something that would make that
01:04:32
would just like like screaming, you know, everything else having
01:04:37
the scrolls E having the scroll burn, you know, kind of plays
01:04:44
homage. You know, some of the history
01:04:45
that you know Barry brings about of like, like, wasn't it one of
01:04:49
the manuscripts they saved or one of the records?
01:04:52
They say that these monks are going to burn like this copy of
01:04:56
the Bible for for fuel, but then they.
01:04:58
Think they they use the scrolls for the the baths, right?
01:05:02
To fuel the baths, To warm the baths, Yeah.
01:05:06
Can why don't you tell me what the symbol is an F?
01:05:09
Is it just like some sort of cross?
01:05:12
I I think it's that same oh the symbol.
01:05:13
I was thinking the coin again. Good question.
01:05:18
I've seen that called. What's?
01:05:21
It called, I think it's. I think it's called an Ankh and
01:05:24
I think it's, it's, it has something to do with like
01:05:28
ancient, like I've seen it like when we, you know, you see stuff
01:05:32
about the Pharaohs and stuff like that in ancient Egypt.
01:05:35
I've seen it associated with that.
01:05:37
With Egypt. Yes, the ankh sometimes refers
01:05:40
to as the key of life or the key of the Nile, representative of
01:05:43
eternal life in ancient Egypt. That's an extra half a point
01:05:47
right there. Mike, Michael do that sometimes,
01:05:51
like halfway through it, we'll we'll realize that one of these
01:05:54
things it just it like clicks. We either missed or
01:05:57
misinterpreted, yeah. Yeah.
01:05:59
I think that's a cool touch, although it didn't show up in
01:06:02
the book at all. So, but it's really.
01:06:05
Other than Alexandra being in in Egypt.
01:06:08
But you know, we don't go to Egypt.
01:06:10
Do you think we should have gone?
01:06:11
Well, we go to the Sinai, but do you think we should have gone to
01:06:13
like, the ruins of Alexandria or like the modern day city?
01:06:17
Like, he talks in the author's note about this modern day
01:06:20
library they're building there, which sounds awesome.
01:06:22
Should the story, if not at all like, kind of touched on that?
01:06:27
That's actually a great point. I'd never even thought of that.
01:06:30
And it would be interesting to at least like, at least have
01:06:34
them go to Cairo. Agreed.
01:06:37
Agreed. Let's look, look at Cairo and
01:06:39
see what we can find and like, well, maybe we'll, you know,
01:06:42
we'll investigate there or there'll be some, you know,
01:06:45
breadcrumb there that we can find.
01:06:46
But that's, that's a great point.
01:06:48
Never even thought of that. While I total my scores,
01:06:54
Brandon, why don't you you have now 5 free points to give to
01:06:58
anything you would like. I already I already took mine.
01:07:01
Mine is Gary. So I'm I'm done, but you guys
01:07:04
have to give yours. So what's your free space?
01:07:07
And I'll total this up. So I think my my free space is
01:07:12
going to go to the the buy in factor because as I'm reading
01:07:19
this, I keep thinking how in the heck is Steve Berry going to end
01:07:25
up proving this or how how are they in the book?
01:07:28
When I say prove it, How's he going to prove it in the in the
01:07:30
world of the story, right. Yeah, because, you know, he he
01:07:35
really had me. He did.
01:07:37
I can't kept thinking like this and and it makes you that just
01:07:42
that what if piece to history. I know we talked about that
01:07:44
before. It's just the what if.
01:07:47
Like what if this conversation between Saint Augustine and
01:07:51
Saint Jerome actually did happen?
01:07:53
What if, you know something, a translation is wrong in this
01:08:00
spot that we've been saying, you know, this Old Testament spot,
01:08:03
you know, we've been saying for centuries is, is it really
01:08:07
isn't. It's just that that what if
01:08:09
factor is just really well done with this book because you know,
01:08:14
it's, it's historical faction like like you mentioned and you
01:08:19
know, you, it's, it's just so evident and it's so well done
01:08:22
with this that you know, I, I have to give my free space to
01:08:27
that 'cause I was, I was bought in the whole time.
01:08:29
I'm with you. Yeah, can't steal your free
01:08:33
space. But if I could, I would.
01:08:34
It'd be the quest, the buy into the quest and the history of it,
01:08:38
checking out in the history, combining with the Saudis
01:08:40
demolishing this town so no archaeological evidence can be
01:08:43
found. And what would happen if we find
01:08:46
out the Holy Land is not actually the Holy Land?
01:08:48
And yeah, the amazing stuff. But since I got to change it up
01:08:52
and Chris, you took Gary, I'm going to wrap in Henrik with
01:08:55
that. I feel like that'd be another
01:08:56
kind of stolen free space, because this book really could
01:08:59
be called The Adventures of Henrik and Gary.
01:09:01
Oh, I'd I'd read that. Exactly, the two of them going
01:09:05
off and, and doing what they're doing together.
01:09:06
He's like the mentor, the father figure, while his father's
01:09:09
solving, you know, saving the day, the wise old man.
01:09:14
So I, I feel like I can't do that either because, because you
01:09:16
guys kind of covered that. So I think and and Brandon, you
01:09:19
mentioned it earlier in the jog my memory, this idea of the
01:09:22
Guardians, the fact that this knowledge can be preserved
01:09:26
throughout time by a secret Society of which many of our
01:09:30
heroes from history, the big men of history have been involved in
01:09:33
and had this esoteric knowledge or this access to knowledge
01:09:38
that's quite literally hidden out in the middle of the desert,
01:09:41
protected by the Guardians through the years.
01:09:45
I love when history, you know, plays out on that grand scale
01:09:48
when there, when there's something about history that
01:09:50
connects all the threads, all the time periods, all the
01:09:53
people, all the players, and they all had this something in
01:09:56
common that made them influence history and, and be the thread
01:10:01
throughout history that brings us to where we are today.
01:10:03
So the idea of the guardians, you get that knock on the door
01:10:06
inviting you into their temple of knowledge and you have to go
01:10:10
on the quest and complete the quest to get in really cool
01:10:12
backdrop for the story. So I I think the Guardians are
01:10:15
going to be my big winner. All right, that gives us our
01:10:22
scorecard. So we have a grand total of
01:10:27
Brandon, you are 41.5 out of 50, tied with me 41.5 coming right
01:10:36
behind us, Mike with a 40.5. So we all, we all like this
01:10:41
book, you know, pretty pretty closely.
01:10:43
And for just as a context, you know, me and Mike gave a temp
01:10:47
our legacy, a 44.5 and a 45. So, you know, it's, it's a
01:10:52
close, it's close, but I, I think I don't know, I like, I
01:10:57
like each of them differently. So it's kind of hard to compare.
01:11:01
Yeah. We kind of like we kind of
01:11:02
talked our way through that, but yeah.
01:11:05
I think had I, I read Templar Legacy, you know, a few years
01:11:10
ago and I think had I read them more closely together, I might
01:11:16
feel a little bit differently. And your, your guys pot, you
01:11:20
know, your episode on, on the Templar legacy is what inspired
01:11:24
me to go grab, you know, Alexandria.
01:11:27
Like I was like, I got to get back into reading Steve Berry.
01:11:29
Yeah. Like there's just a way you guys
01:11:31
talked about the, the historical aspect of things and I, there
01:11:34
were things that I had forgotten.
01:11:35
It happened. I was like I I need to get back
01:11:37
into this. I love that that that's almost
01:11:40
what we intend to do is we just want to be like that after show,
01:11:42
you know, like we finish a book, we're going to have that after
01:11:44
show bro out about it. And people who either read it
01:11:47
recently or have read this book long ago can listen in to jog
01:11:50
their memory and kind of reignite that fire.
01:11:53
And it's funny because that's what your post and your review
01:11:55
did for me, which was we read the Templar Legacy.
01:11:58
After years of begging Chris to pick up a Steve Berry book, we
01:12:02
finally got there and we both said we want to do more, but
01:12:05
we've been so busy and our reading schedule is jam packed.
01:12:08
I don't know when we would have gotten this to this one, but
01:12:10
realistically, I don't think we would have scheduled it in in
01:12:13
2025, just knowing how much we have coming down the Pike.
01:12:17
And so your review, seeing you glowing review, check them out.
01:12:21
We'll let you at the very end here.
01:12:22
Brandon, plug your socials one more time.
01:12:25
I know you said it earlier where people can find you because when
01:12:27
I read your glowing review of Alexandria link, I was so fired
01:12:31
up. I was like, Chris, we're putting
01:12:32
it, you know, on the schedule this summer, like do it right
01:12:35
now because I was so pumped to get into it.
01:12:37
So thank you for that as well. Tell the people where can they
01:12:39
find you. So I'm on X at Saturday, I'm
01:12:43
Saturday Dad on X at Dad under score Saturday, and then I also
01:12:50
have a weekly newsletter that I publish.
01:12:53
It's free to sign up. It's called Saturday Dad Reads
01:12:57
and basically what you get with that is my weekly, do a book a
01:13:02
week, do a quick summary of the book, do a review.
01:13:06
Also add in there a little. I call them Dad's knowledge
01:13:11
bombs. I'll take something that's
01:13:13
inside the book and I'll expand upon it.
01:13:16
So for example, my knowledge BOM for when I did the Alexandria
01:13:20
link was about the library of Alexandria itself.
01:13:23
And I, I liken those to things that if you're the dad at the
01:13:26
table and you know, Christmas dinner, Thanksgiving dinner,
01:13:29
Sunday dinner, what have you, and you, you need to drop a
01:13:33
little knowledge on the people at the table.
01:13:34
You know, that's the kind of stuff you want to have in your
01:13:36
back pocket. Then you're that I always end
01:13:38
the end the end the newsletter with either some some book
01:13:42
wrecks, you know what I'm reading now, or a dad rant, some
01:13:48
takes on being a being a dad of four and you know, old man
01:13:53
yelling in a cloud sometimes. Nice, nice.
01:13:58
I'm a I'm a dad of four as well, so.
01:14:01
All right, on. OK.
01:14:04
Three dads talking about books. Exactly.
01:14:07
There's a new. That was what I, you know, that
01:14:10
was one of the things that I, I had intended to do from, from
01:14:14
the start, when I got got the idea from, from my brother was
01:14:18
like, hey, man, why don't you, you know, you read constantly.
01:14:21
There's a niche out there for dads to talk about books.
01:14:25
Why don't you start posting instead of like trolling the
01:14:28
Pittsburgh sports media? Why don't you use your, your
01:14:32
social media handle to, you know, talk about books.
01:14:36
And I started doing it about two years ago with a, a review every
01:14:42
week. And here we are now talking
01:14:45
books with you guys. Awesome.
01:14:48
That's good stuff. I just subscribed to your
01:14:51
newsletter. I'm I'm excited to you have a
01:14:55
new reader, a new reader in May. This was great.
01:14:59
Thank you for coming on. And yeah, we got it.
01:15:01
Maybe, maybe when we read the what is it, the Venetian length?
01:15:04
Venetian. Betrayal.
01:15:06
Venetian betrayal. Yeah, we will have you back.
01:15:08
Or if you come up with any other books that you review that you
01:15:10
think you're just screaming, you know, Thriller Pod right in our
01:15:13
wheelhouse. Spy, espionage, military stuff.
01:15:16
Recommend the way. I'm I'm going to give you guys
01:15:19
all the credit in the world for turning me on to Daniel Silva.
01:15:22
Your episode on the Kill Artist was top notch.
01:15:26
I know. I'm going to get back to him
01:15:27
too. Favorite books?
01:15:29
I'm reading the English Assassin right now which is book 2 and I
01:15:34
don't know if you guys have done anything with Don Bentley.
01:15:37
I'm currently reading the Matt Drake first in the Matt Drake
01:15:40
series so. We did all of them.
01:15:44
So I think if you find those, I think you'll enjoy it as you as
01:15:46
you go through and his new Mitch rap books in the in the Vince
01:15:50
Flynn series we've covered. So Yep.
01:15:52
I love that review. This week is a Mitch rap.
01:15:54
I'll give you that Kill Shot, the second book in the series.
01:15:56
All right, all right. OK.
01:15:59
OK, And we're going to get the follow up to that book next
01:16:02
month. Chris and I actually just got
01:16:03
early copies to Denied Access, which is the third book after
01:16:07
American Assassin, Kill Shot and now the third Mitch rap book in
01:16:11
that trilogy. Beautiful.
01:16:13
All right. Well, we're going to look out
01:16:14
for that one. I I'm very curious what your
01:16:16
knowledge bomb will be for kill shot.
01:16:18
A couple ways you can go with that.
01:16:20
But Yep, absolutely. You have the knowledge bombs.
01:16:23
We got the limericks. So I don't know if you know this
01:16:26
about the pod, but every time we review a book, I end with a
01:16:28
Limerick. So before you close this out,
01:16:30
Chris, I got to say there once was a secret to find that could
01:16:36
change all of humankind. With Cotton on track, the past
01:16:40
fighting back and the truth blows conspiracies minds.
01:16:45
Oh, that's a good 1M. It's a good one.
01:16:48
Good job there. It's such a good one, one might
01:16:51
say it takes AI to write that Limerick.
01:16:54
No way. I'm sorry, boys, I let you down.
01:16:58
I let you down. I didn't have 1/3.
01:17:00
I. That's a Chad DPT one.
01:17:03
And I don't do, that's the first time I've done it on the pod, so
01:17:06
I had to cop out just cause having such a good time, I
01:17:08
didn't want to be distracted writing a Limerick.
01:17:10
So I won't do it again. Chris, I apologize.
01:17:13
Normally he he makes me sit here for at least like 20 minutes
01:17:16
while he's like wait, wait, wait, let me do a Limerick and
01:17:18
I'm just watching him while I'm you.
01:17:21
Know he would say 845 pod we click record at 9:15 'cause I'm.
01:17:24
Trying to write a Limerick. I didn't want to do that to you
01:17:27
though, Brandon. So I was like, let me just let
01:17:29
me just use some AI here all. Good.
01:17:32
All right. Well, thanks.
01:17:35
Thanks for coming on man. Yeah, absolutely.
01:17:38
Guys. Thank you for having me.
01:17:39
This was an awesome opportunity and loved having the chance to
01:17:43
talk folks with you guys. All right, let's do it again
01:17:45
sometime. Sounds good to me.
01:17:47
All right. Take it easy, guys.
01:17:49
All right. Well, thank you to Brandon for
01:17:51
coming on. Again, I need to thank our
01:17:53
patrons, our Deputy Director, Sherry F Marsh and Brad E, our
01:17:57
special agents, Adam, Mike, Ben, Daryl, George, Matt, hold on,
01:18:02
I'm getting cut off here. Matt, Don and Chris, please
01:18:08
subscribe, rate, interview to all three seasons of No Limits.
01:18:11
You can find us@thrillerpod.com or on Twitter and Instagram at
01:18:14
Thriller Podcast. And as always, just like cotton,
01:18:19
be cotton.