Steve Berry's New York Times bestseller, The Patriot Threat, finds Cotton Malone racing to stop a rogue ex-KGB agent plotting revenge against the United States. The 16th Amendment to the Constitution is why Americans pay income taxes. But what if there were problems associated with that amendment? Secrets that call into question decades of tax collecting? In fact, there is a surprising truth to this hidden possibility. Cotton Malone, once a member of an elite intelligence division within the Justice Department known as the Magellan Billet, is now retired and owns an old bookshop in Denmark. But when his former-boss, Stephanie Nelle, asks him to track a rogue North Korean who may have acquired some top secret Treasury Department files--the kind that could bring the United States to its knees--Malone is vaulted into a harrowing twenty-four hour chase that begins on the canals in Venice and ends in the remote highlands of Croatia. With appearances by Franklin Roosevelt, Andrew Mellon, a curious painting that still hangs in the National Gallery of Art, and some eye-opening revelations from the $1 bill, this riveting, non-stop adventure is trademark Steve Berry--90% historical fact, 10% exciting speculation--a provocative thriller posing a dangerous question: What if the Federal income tax is illegal?

Author Biography

STEVE BERRY is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of a dozen Cotton Malone novels, and several standalones. He has 21 million books in print, translated into 40 languages. With his wife, Elizabeth, he is the founder of History Matters, which is dedicated to historical preservation. He serves as a member of the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board and was a founding member of International Thriller Writers, formerly serving as its co-president.