📚 The Columbus Affair by Steve Berry
If you’ve ever picked up a Dan Brown novel and thought I wish he’d just get to the point, Steve Berry might be your guy. 📚 The Columbus Affair by Steve Berry This is my first Steve Berry read, my book club selected it, and I'd like to read at least one more before I decide to scroll by his name. And I will say the other book club members did not like it...at all. The premise alone is enough to keep me turning pages: a disgraced Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, moments from ending his life, gets pulled into a 500-year-old mystery tied to Christopher Columbus. Was Columbus Jewish? Did he hide something in Jamaica that still matters today? Berry makes you want to know. Fair warning … the first half is setup. You’re meeting characters, getting your bearings across Florida, Vienna, Prague, and eventually the mountains of Jamaica. It’s not slow exactly, but the payoff is definitely back-loaded. Somewhere around the halfway point, the quest feeling kicks in and you stop putting it down. Berry does something I genuinely appreciate: he includes a Writer’s Note at the end that separates fact from fiction. I almost read it first. Several reviewers said they do exactly that, and honestly, I get it. The history of Columbus … all we realize we don’t know about the man .. is fascinating on its own. Less wordy than Brown, better researched than most, and a solid ride once it opens up about halfway through.