The Devil's Gold

By: Steve Berry

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 1 hr and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

The Devil always gets his due.

Once he was called the Sphinx, a man so inscrutable that neither his adversaries nor fellow intelligence operatives could predict his next move. Now a contract agent with a secret mission, Jonathan Wyatt has gone rogue. For eight years he's been plotting. Waiting. Scheming to kill Federal agents Christopher Combs and Cotton Malone, whom he blames for the loss of his career. But as Wyatt prepares for a final confrontation in a remote South American village, he makes a discovery that stretches back to the horrors of World War II, to the astounding secret of a child's birth, to Martin Bormann and Eva Braun and to a fortune in lost gold.

©2011 Steve Berry (P)2011 Random House

"Revenge Is Best Served Cold"

Would you consider the audio edition of The Devil's Gold (Short Story) to be better than the print version?

I am so glad a fan of this author mentioned this is an introduction to Cotton Malone series.
I purchased only because of the reader, and will try a full length version of author's work.
I love these short stories as they give a great preview of author's skills.

Who was your favorite character and why?

This was a great short story and all the characters made it interesting and intriguing.

What about Scott Brick’s performance did you like?

New fan of Mr.Brick and purchased this author's short to get an introduction to author's work as it is read by Scott. I love readers' ability to have such a full rich reading voice range.

If you could rename The Devil's Gold (Short Story), what would you call it?

"the Last Days"

A Cotton Malone short without Cotton in it

This is an interesting short story set firmly in the Cotton Malone universe. His presence is mentioned, but the man himself, does not appear here. Also unusual for this series, which is, at it's heart a series about historical mysteries, is that the history here is relatively recent. In the past we have dealt with mysteries going back hundreds to thousands of years. Here we have a story rooted firmly in the 20th century.

The story is mostly standalone, but teases a follow-up that will include Malone in a much more significant way.
I recommend this book.

Another Steve Berry Hit

What did you love best about The Devil's Gold (Short Story)?

I just think the book was great. It had a intresting story line

Who was your favorite character and why?

I don't remember the name of the main character, but he left you wanting more

Which scene was your favorite?

The ending of the story

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Revenge is comming

Any additional comments?

Scott Brick makes the audio books of Steve Berry

Good short story

This was my first book (really a short story) by Steve Berry. Based on this, I will definitely be buying more of his longer works. It's an good action story, with Nazis, gold and murder. The characters are a bit thin, which is understandable given the overall length of the piece, but it still works. The ending is not as good as the premise, but it's ok.

Pure McGuffin

The thing I like best about Steve Berry are his McGuffins.

Quick recap: McGuffin is a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock to describe the thing the villains want so badly, they will go to any length to get it. He didn't think audiences cared about the McGuffin as long as they could buy into the villain's abiding interest in it. Hence the double chase format where the good guy is being chased by the bad guys and the police because he knows something about the McGuffin.

I believe that after a century of McGuffins, we know how double chases will turn out, taking all of the suspense out of it. So contrary to Hitchcock's theory, what holds our interest is the McGuffin itself. The Da Vinci Code is a classic double chase, its popularity based not at all on the suspense generated by the chase, but on what everyone is seeking, the Holy Grail.

Steve Berry is sometimes dismissed as a Da Vinci Code bandwagoneer, especially since he wrote his own Knights Templar novel shortly after Dan Brown created a sensation with Da Vinci. I disagree -- the first of Berry's Da Vinci-style double chases was written concurrently. Either way, Berry has long ago surpassed Brown in the quality, quantity and consistency of his thrillers.

Berry is so much better because of his McGuffins. Always starting with a historical mystery, he takes known fact, cherry picks scholarly speculation about the unknowns of his subject, and adds a layer of his own fictional creation. He builds what is usually a double (or triple or quadruple) chase around that, most often centering on the character of Cotton Malone. After every novel, Berry meticulously details what is fact, what is speculation, what is fiction.

Four of Berry's last five novels have been preceded by an eBook short story. Devil's Gold acts as prequel to The Jefferson Key, one of Berry's best. It introduces Jonathan Wyatt and his personal mission, which then figures significantly into Jefferson. Clocking in at under two hours rather than the 12-16 hours of a Berry novel, Devil's Gold strips away almost all plot and leaves us with almost all McGuffin, taking us into Hitler's bunker at the end of WWII and speculating on what may have happened there and afterwards.

This historical mystery is so good, and Berry's speculations about what may have ensued are so good, I am left wishing that he crafted a full novel around it. Still good in its existing form. And on a personal note, his most recent novel, The Lincoln Myth, was the first of his books I listened to rather than read, and it was the first that disappointed me. I was worried that the audio format was the difference. After listening to The Devil's Gold in audio, I am convinced that was not the case -- it was just a weak McGuffin that was to blame.

Nazis and spies

Well written story of the end of the war and the many murders that might have followed.

Plausible or Not?

Steve Berry uses historical facts to develop a story that keeps you wanting more. The performance was terrific. This is a great listen that can be finished in less than two hours.

Too Shirt,

Narrator was good. Not one of Berry's best novels. The book was more of a short story. Not worth the credit point I used.

Exceptional short story

A short story that I found very interesting. Although it is a stand alone story, I now want to see how this fits into the Cotton Malone universe. Thanks Mr. Berry!

Another view of Nazi's who escaped...

...to South America. The Devil's gold is a large cache of the metal supposedly brought from Europe by Martin Bormann. The conspiracy theory gets really weird by bringing in two Hitler-Braun sons, one still living, into the story. This short story is a bit too ahistorical for my taste. I like the story not because of the Nazi conspiracy theories but because of the rogue ex-agent going after Cotton Malone and another agent he blames for ending his career. Scott Brick narrates brilliantly.