Review: The Bishop's Pawn

The Bishop's Pawn by Steve Berry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Steve Berry's continuing his several-years-long hot streak of US-history-based conspiracy thrillers, now with one he claims he's had in the pipeline for a decade, but hasn't published till now because it'd be perfectly timely with the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. I've heard a few of the conspiracies this book delves into before - like how J. Edgar Hoover was determined to out MLK's character flaws, or at least get him widely considered a communist, in an attempt to delegitimize him. But The Bishop's Pawn, set against the backdrop of Cotton Malone retrospectively examining one of his earliest cases, dissects those conspiracies as masterfully as one can expect from Berry, and showcases that even a flawed man can still have a strong and positive impact on history and should still be remembered as such.

I'm obligated to warn you, if you're considering going into this book, that there are a lot of potentially troubling moments when Malone and allies unearth some seriously disturbing transcripts re: Hoover and/or James Earl Ray. Racist language abounds, as you can imagine. Not to mention scenes written, as if in journal entries, to describe the moments of MLK's assassination and death - these are extremely, extremely bloody and graphic.

But I'll say this much - it wouldn't be a proper Steve Berry novel if you didn't come out of it with a newfound appreciation for US history, and a sincere wish that maybe, just maybe, people would actually take its lessons to heart and not try to emulate the worst of the worst of its players. Emulate the best instead. Like MLK.

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