The patriot threat - Steve Berry

The history of America's income-tax law can be found in the 16th Amendment to the Constitution.

But someone has unearthed a secret that calls that law into question.

Now it's up to Cotton Malone to learn the truth.

Once a member of an elite intelligence division within the Justice Department, Malone is now a retired bookshop owner 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.

Loaded with action, character sketches, and] fascinating history.

along the lines of The Da Vinci Code .

- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette With appearances by Franklin Roosevelt, Andrew Mellon, a curious painting that still hangs in the National Gallery of Art, and some eye-opening revelations about the dollar bill, Malone's high-stakes investigation will ultimately beg the question: What if the federal income tax is illegal? Now it's up to him to find the answer-at all costs.

One of Berry's best books to date.

- The New York Times This edition of the book is the deluxe, tall rack mass market paperback.