The Warsaw Protocol is the 15th book in the Cotton Malone series by Steve Berry. As usual, Berry hooks you quickly, and the story takes off right from the start. Fans of the series know the author diligently researches these stories, and the new book is no exception, as the author is an expert at melding fact and fiction into an exciting, action packed story that will leave Cotton Malone fans thrilled. It’s great as a stand-alone novel, as Berry gives you just enough background on the recurring characters so that new readers are up to date, while not boring seasoned readers. And the ending sets up the next story, so I’m eagerly anticipating the next Malone adventure. Another 5 story novel from Berry, who never disappoints.

Steve Berry has Cotton Malone back helping Stephanie Nelle and the Magellan Billet. This time, the President of Poland has a secret and it threatens to topple him. US President Fox, who has no idea how to govern, wants to put missiles in Poland and will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. We follow Cotton and Stephanie through Poland and Slovakia trying to stop Fox from his plans and also help the Polish President stay in power.
It's a great storyline, and Cotton doesn't disappoint. Unfortunately, Mr. Berry has way too much prose describing background and history. I've read every Cotton Malone book and it feels like Mr. Berry is using all the information to fill in for a shorter storyline.
That's why I could only give it 4 stars.

As a Steve Berry fan, I enjoyed this next book in the Cotton Malone series. For those who read the last book, I enjoyed the fact that this narrative was written in 3rd person unlike the last book in this series. Overall this is a four star read, great for readers who are in to history and are looking for a fast pace thriller. Even if readers haven't read the other Cotton Malone novels, this one is can be read independently.

What do you get when you have a corrupt president who surrounds himself with yes-men and flunkies that proceeds to attempt to bribe the leader of a former Soviet state? No, no, no... Not the current headlines of the day; you get The Warsaw Protocol by Steve Barry.

This was my first foray into the Cotton Malone series; I've had all of the earlier books on my to-read list for quite a while. This book worked very well for me as a standalone work, but there were some things that I would have appreciated a bit more if I had read some of the earlier books. There are quite a few references to people, places, and organizations that would have been clearer.

I was very impressed with everything about this book. Berry combines a fantastic thriller with a history lesson that I didn't expect. The history of Poland and the detail around the locations made me spend several hours on Wikipedia chasing down details from the book. It was a lot of fun.

I will be making time to go back and read the earlier books in this series; for no other reason than for the history lesson in each book.

Thanks to Steve Barry, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

There is no one better at combining a lesson in history with an action-packed thriller than Steve Berry. His latest, The Warsaw Protocol, takes the reader from the ramparts of Wawel Castle in Krakow to the lowest levels of a salt mine as Cotton Malone attempts to retrieve documents that are damaging to Poland’s president.

Invitations have gone out to seven countries to attend an auction. The price of admission is one of the Arma Christi, the Weapons of Christ, a collection of holy relics. Jonty Olivier, a broker of information, has come into possession of documents that reveal Poland’s president was an informer during the communist reign. The United States wants the documents to force the president to accept a missile system on their soil. Russia wants them to not only keep the missiles out of Poland, but to also control the president. In 1982, Janusz Czajkowski, Poland’s current president, was forced to spy on Solidarity. He had also been recruited by Solidarity to ensure that the information that he passed suited their purposes. These actions were specified in the Warsaw Protocol. Czajkowski must find records of the Protocol to counter the damage if his intelligence agent fails to retrieve the documents.

Cotton is contacted by his old boss to steal one of the Arma Christi for America’s entry to the auction. Attending the proceedings with a government representative, the auction goes horribly wrong when the representatives are attacked. The race is now on to discover where Olivier concealed the documents.

While Berry touches on the history of Poland, his description is brief and relevant to the story. He also draws on the present political climate and the strained relationships between nations. Though Cotton has taken an assignment for the US, should he find the documents for a president who would use them for blackmail? History, politics and a thrilling chase make this another great entry in this series. I would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my review.

I love Steve Berry's writing style and have enjoyed all of the Cotton Malone books that I've read over the years. This one is no exception.. The plot is fast paced and full of action. I'm looking forward to the next book.

I have read every single Cotton Malone book that has been written. Once again Steve Berry does not disappoint. Thank goodness my kids are old enough to make their own dinner because I didn't stop reading until I read the last page.

Yaass! Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone series is an auto-read for me. But, TBH, there were several books that were set in the US that weren’t up to the original standards of the series. In The Warsaw Protocol, the historical and geographical research was alive and kicking and central to the plot. Great.

The Warsaw Protocol is part of Steve Berry's series, Cotton Malone. I enjoyed this book. I found it to be a quite the intriguing read. Four stars.

I am a huge Steve Berry fan and love his Cotton Malone books. The Warsaw Protocol is another in a long list of great books featuring Malone. One by one the seven precious relics of the Arma Christi, the weapons of Christ, are disappearing across the world. After Cotton Malone, witnesses the theft of one the seven precious relics, he learns from his old boss, Stephanie Nelle, that incriminating information on the president of Poland will be offered by auction to the highest bidder. The price of admission to the auction is one of the relics, so Cotton has to steal one. Nothing goes as planned and Malone is caught up into a battle between nations over information that could change the balance of power in Europe. Malone is caught in the middle of a war, because of a secret known as the Warsaw Protocol. Steve Berry continues to knock it out of the park with his Cotton Malone series.

THE WARSAW PROTOCOL by Steve Berry is the fifteenth book in the Cotton Malone series. While it works well as a standalone, you will get better insight into Cotton’s character if you have read prior books in the series.
Cotton Malone is a former Justice Department intelligence agent who now owns a rare book shop in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is in Belgium to attend Europe’s largest antiquarian book fair. While there, he decides to go to the Basilica of the Holy Blood, a 12th-century building that is more to one of Europe’s most sacred reliquaries, the Holy Blood, one of the relics comprising the Arma Christi. When three men steal the relic, the thriller accelerates in pace and Cotton is pulled into another adventure.

This is a well written novel with action taking place in Belgium, Poland, and Slovakia. As a reader we learn about history, religion and politics at the same time as we experience lots of thrills, action, adventure and suspense. The characters and situation are memorable and the story line is exciting and entertaining. Berry’s descriptions bring the places and characters to life better than most writers today without detracting or slowing down the action.

He always does a great job at the end of each book sharing what was fiction versus reality for events, places and people. The amount of research that went into this book is extraordinary. This was my fifth book by this author that I have read in 2019 and I can’t seem to get enough of the series. I am looking forward to reading more of them. I highly recommend this book and the series to those that like political and historical thrillers.

Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Steve Berry for a digital ARC of this novel via Net Galley and the opportunity to provide an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

Steve Berry is a very safe bet for thriller fans. He writes winners that are exciting and entertaining. This is engaging with varied and interesting characters and situations. Recommended.

I really appreciate the advanced copy for review!!

I will never get tired of Cotton's adventures! This time Cotton gets involved in an international blackmail scheme where damaging information on the President of Poland's past is for sale to the highest bidder. Cotton could care less, but his loyalty to his old boss is more than enough reason for him to disrupt the many forces trying to destabilize the Polish nation.

Berry's descriptions of the historical landmark's in this region are again amazing and adds so much history and lore of the country. #steveberry #cottonmalone #warsawprotocol #netgalley

Current events collide with biblical relics and the history of Poland, medieval and recent, in Steve Berry's 15th entry in the Cotton Malone series. All that you expect from a Berry-Malone thriller is here -- exotic locales described in imaginative detail, historical back stories fully researched, action sequences from the canals of Bruges to mountaintop castles in Slovakia to the deep salt mines of Poland.

And in this entry, a rich array of characters with conflicting motives and personalities, the perspective shifting between Malone, himself conflicted between doing the right thing for his country and doing the wrong thing for his president; a pair of international thieves who set up an interesting device, a secret high stakes auction among all the major geopolitical powers for which the price of entry is a stolen Catholic relic; and the President of Poland, his hidden past colliding with his present political and personal predicaments.

What we really have here is a travelogue and historical treatise masquerading as a fast paced action thriller, Berry as always pulling off this balancing act by presenting his subject via the conventions of the genre without ever being obviously pedantic. And in any genre, interesting characters always carry a story along.

Berry also adds some timely politics to the mix -- written before the current constitutional crisis in Washington (as of early autumn 2019), he proves highly prescient about the undue and perhaps unwise influence wielded by a loose cannon of a president over an Eastern European country at odds with Russia.

I wonder, as I am reviewing an ARC so kindly provided by NetGalley and Berry's publisher well in advance of its publication date, if the author has considered updating that part of the story to reflect our current reality -- i.e. changing the motivation from foreign policy to domestic political rivalry. If I could lend my encouragement as a reader and fan, I'd say yes!

Despite all this gushing, I can only rate this book four stars. Some points were lost because the auction and McGuffin play themselves out well before the end of the book, the remainder being all action, chase, showdown.

Beyond that, it's strictly for personal reasons. Given my family's unfortunate history in Poland, that country is the last place in the world that I care about. I am uninterested and disinterested in its history and politics, to put it mildly. I am about to embark on a trip to the only continent I haven't yet visited, so I've been to every corner of the world, and yet Poland is at the very bottom of my bucket list (or really not there at all), despite Berry's vivid description of it.

In that context, the mystery at the heart of this story, the McGuffin that shares its title with the title of the book, is (to me) one of the least compelling I've encountered in any of Berry's books. I just don't see what all the fuss about. The secret is not motivation enough for some of the more unusual and extreme acts undertaken by some of the characters. And as it is all about Poland, I just don't care.

But that's just me. Certainly a minority of one. Most every other reader will probably find it all quite interesting. Especially since Berry is at the helm, channeling it all through Cotton Malone.

Cotton Malone strikes again. Steve Berry informs his books with ancient artifacts, intrigue, and politics. As before, you come away from this book a bit smarter than when you started. Good characters and plot.

Another great installment in the Cotton Malone saga, that continues to more than satisfy his readers.

Cotton Malone is on the search for a sacred lance, one of the relics of the "Arma Christi" said to be among handful of Jesus's possessions that are being stolen from locations all around the world. This novel in the wonderful series written by Steve Berry journeys from Bruge to Poland and Slovenia as Cotton tries to learn who and why the artificats are being stolen. The thieves are many from the Brits, Chinese, Germans and the US. But what does the Polish president have to do with all of it anyway. This novel weaves tales from the ancient world, WWII, the Polish workers movement of the 1980s and present day events seamlessly in a roller coaster adventure ride. This book is a worthy successor to all the other Cotton Malone series. The only thing missing is at least a sighting of Cassieopeia.

This one was a little difficult to get into. I'm not sure if it was the setting (Poland) or what. I struggled to read it, but since I love this series, I wanted to finish. There were some great parts and I love the main character. It is obvious that the author does a lot of research while writing. I look forward to the next one.

Another wonderful entry in this series with references to our current political atmosphere. If you haven’t read one of these you have something to look forward to.

This is the 15th book in the Cotton Malone series and like the previous books it is an enjoyable read. For someone who likes a bit of history mixed with action, suspense and adventure I highly recommend this book. It will keep you interested and maybe anxious about what will happen next. I give this book a solid four stars.