Steve Berry (novelist)

• The Amber Room, Ballantine Books (August 26, 2003). ISBN 0-345-46004-9
• The Romanov Prophecy, Ballantine Books (August 31, 2004). ISBN 0-345-46006-5
• The Third Secret, Ballantine Books (May 17, 2005). ISBN 0-345-47613-1
• The Columbus Affair, Ballantine Books (May 15, 2012). ISBN 978-0-345-52652-6

These novels star Cotton Malone, a bookseller and former and freelance spy for the fictitious covert US intelligence agency Magellan Billet.

1. The Templar Legacy, Ballantine Books (February 21, 2006). ISBN 0-345-47615-8
2. The Alexandria Link, Ballantine Books (January 30, 2007). ISBN 0-345-48575-0
3. The Venetian Betrayal, Ballantine Books (December 11, 2007). ISBN 0-345-48577-7
4. The Charlemagne Pursuit, Ballantine Books (December 2, 2008). ISBN 0-345-48579-3
5. The Paris Vendetta, Ballantine Books (December 1, 2009). ISBN 0-345-50547-6
6. The Emperor's Tomb, Ballantine Books (November 23, 2010). ISBN 0-345-50549-2
7. The Jefferson Key, Ballantine Books (May 17, 2011). ISBN 0-345-50551-4
8. The King's Deception, Ballantine Books (June 11, 2013). ISBN 978-0345526540
9. The Lincoln Myth, Ballantine Books (May 20, 2014). ISBN 978-0345526571
10. The Patriot Threat, Macmillan Books (March 31, 2015). ISBN 978-1250056238
11. The 14th Colony, Minotaur Books (April 5, 2016). ISBN 978-1250056245
12. The Lost Order, Minotaur Books (April 4, 2017). ISBN 978-1-250-05625-2
13. The Bishop's Pawn, Minotaur Books (March 2018). ISBN 978-1250140227
14. The Malta Exchange, Minotaur Books (March 2019). ISBN 978-1250140265
15. The Warsaw Protocol, Minotaur Books (February 2020). ISBN 978-1250140302 [6]

Berry has released four short stories in eBook-only form featuring side characters from the Cotton Malone novels. These stories act somewhat as prequels to The Emperor's Tomb, The Jefferson Key, The Columbus Affair, and The King's Deception, respectively. The first three are available in Three Tales from the World of Cotton Malone: The Balkan Escape, The Devil's Gold, and The Admiral's Mark (Short Stories). Each short story is also included in the paperback edition of the book it precedes.

1. The Balkan Escape, Ballantine Books (September 13, 2010). ASIN: B003MQMZ2K (featuring Cassiopeia Vitt)
2. The Devil's Gold, Ballantine Books (April 18, 2011). ASIN: B004U33GCW (featuring Jonathan Wyatt)
3. The Admiral's Mark, Ballantine Books (April 2, 2012). ASIN: B007EED534
4. The Tudor Plot, Ballantine Books (April 29, 2013). ASIN: B00C4BA3V4
5. The Devil's Bones (with James Rollins), Simon & Schuster (December 16, 2014). ISBN 978-1-4767-8878-4 (featuring Gray Pierce from Rollins's Sigma Force series)
6. Shadow Tag (With Raymond Khoury), Amazon Digital Services LLC (January 1, 2016). (featuring Khoury's FBI Agent, Sean Reilly, along with Cotton Malone)
7. Past Prologue (with Diana Gabaldon), Simon & Schuster, (June 13, 2017) (featuring Diana Gabaldon's character Jamie Fraser from the Outlander book series teaming up with Cotton Malone)

• The Cotton Malone Series, 9 Book Bundle, Ballantine Books (February 17, 2015). ISBN 978-0-812-98785-0
• Three Tales from the World of Cotton Malone: The Balkan Escape, The Devil's Gold, and The Admiral's Mark (Short Stories), Ballantine Books (December 3, 2012). ISBN 978-0-345-54451-3

The novel is based on the assumption that important facts about the history of the United States are completely unknown to Americans, though they continue to have many implications up to the present.

According to the book, in the very first years of the United States, the Continental Congress granted a "perpetual" Charter to a secret "Commonwealth" of privateers, which was founded during the American Revolution and rendered useful service to the young US. In later years, however, these "privateers" (in fact, pirates) acted mainly for their own private benefit, engaging in manifestly illegal activities while relying on that original Congressional authorization, and strongly resisting any attempt to disband them. In fact, all four US Presidents who were assassinated while in office - Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James A. Garfield in 1881,William McKinley in 1901 and John Kennedy in 1963 - had tried to oppose this "Commonwealth" and were assassinated as a direct result; the pirates had, in each case, located a person who had a reason to hate the President and manipulated them into unknowingly carrying out their design. Other Presidents, like Woodrow Wilson during WWI and Franklin Roosevelt in WWII, knew of this Commonwealth, recognized its secret role, and made secret use of it - and thus avoided being assassinated.

In the book's present, this "Commonwealth" of privateers/pirates remains active into the 21st Century, and wield considerable power behind the scenes. They no longer derive their profits from outright piracy on the high seas, having shifted into up-to-date lucrative forms of organized crime. But their leader, on board his private yacht, maintains "the old pirate traditions" such as "walking the plank" (in an early chapter, this is applied to an unlucky accountant whom the pirate leader wrongly suspected of betrayal).

The current President, Cotton Malone's ultimate boss, is determined to put an end to this criminal "Commonwealth" (and not let himself be assassinated in the process). But first, Malone must complete the delicate task of locating a page torn from the 18th Century Congressional Record, recording the authorization given to the "Commonwealth". Malone must follow a convoluted trail from the museum in Thomas Jefferson's estate at Monticello, where the Founding Father left a message in code of which the numerous visitors are not aware, and leading to a mysterious seaside cave on a desolate shore, where a glass panel protects an ancient document from the fury of the breaking waves.

Only once that centuries-old Congressional authorization been located and destroyed, ensuring that this piece of secret history will remain forever secret, is the President free to act decisively and break up the modern pirates.