Forget everything you think you know about bitcoin. Steve Berry is about to enlighten — and perhaps alarm — you.
In his latest international thriller, The Atlas Maneuver (Grand Central Publishing), book 18 in Berry’s bestselling Cotton Malone series, Cotton must not only unravel the mystery involving the lost treasure of Yamashita’s gold, but also figure out how it connects to the CIA, the oldest bank in the world, and a woman from his past who is harboring secrets centering around cryptocurrency.
It’s a subject that has long fascinated Berry.
“I knew nothing about it,” he says, in an interview with BookTrib. “But there’s a gentleman here in the neighborhood who knows about bitcoin, and so he taught me about it. Along the way I learned something fascinating. There’s a flaw in the bitcoin system. It’s not much discussed but it’s there. So the novel was born.”
Divulging it here would, of course, spoil the plot of Berry’s book.
“Bitcoin works in anonymity,” he says. “There are few regulations, so bitcoin owners have the freedom to do what they want. But this lack of regulation, and unrestricted freedom, cuts both ways.” We’ll stop there because, again, no spoilers. “To my knowledge this is the first novel on which bitcoin is the plot.”
And though there is certainly enough fodder there for Berry’s particular brand of story, The Atlas Maneuver gives readers everything else they’ve come to expect from a Cotton Malone thriller. Tight craft, relentless pacing, a deep dive into an unsolved mystery from the past, and the nostalgia of familiar characters combine for what might be his best book in the series — and that’s certainly saying something.
That doesn’t mean he’s ready to let up, though. With 18 Cotton Malone books and a handful of additional novels and stories to his credit, 24 of them international bestsellers, Berry assures readers he has ideas for at least three more Cotton Malone adventures, teasing that “there are going to be some changes in Cotton’s world.” Of course, that’s inevitable.
“Each book in the series has to be the same, but different,” he says. “That’s a tough order to fill. They can’t be too much of a series, since you want readers to be able to jump right in. So they have to be a little more episodic. You can pick up my books at any point in the series with no problem.”
It’s a tricky balance given everything else Berry has on his plate.
In addition to the next Cotton Malone book, a second installment of the Luke Daniels series he co-writes with Grant Blackwood is set for release on June 11, and in a surprising twist, Berry says fans can look forward to the release of The List, a suspense thriller in the vein of David Baldacci, Harlan Coben, and John Grisham, coming in Summer 2025.
“This was written when I was a lawyer in a small town,” he says. “It’s a fast-paced story I’ve been waiting for years to have published. The tagline would be something like, ‘Steve Berry like you’ve never read him before.’ ”
With a track record that spans 41 languages, 26,000,000 copies and 52 countries, there’s no question The List is one to watch out for. For now though, we have The Atlas Maneuver. Somewhere in the world, every 30 seconds, one of Steve Berry’s novels is sold.
That’s amazing.
This one should absolutely be next on your list.
About Steve Berry:
Steve Berry is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of seventeen Cotton Malone adventures, five stand-alone thrillers, and several works of short fiction. His books have been translated into 41 languages with over 25,000,000 copies in 52 countries. They consistently appear in the top echelon of The New York Times, USA Today, and Indie bestseller lists.
He was born and raised in Georgia, graduating from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University. He was a trial lawyer for 30 years and held elective office for 14 of those years. He is a founding member of International Thriller Writers — a group of nearly 6,000 thriller writers from around the world — and served three years as its co-president.
