The Lost Order

The Lost Order is Steve Berry's 12th Cotton Malone mystery and his 16th book to date.

Cotton accepts an assignment from the Smithsonian Institution and travels to Arkansas to locate a lost treasure.  He becomes involved with the remnant of the most powerful group in American history-the Knights of the Golden Circle. The Knights were founded in 1854 and disappeared in the early 20th century. The KKK was an off-shoot of the group. However, there are now only about 550 sentinals of the Knights that are rumored to be guarding billions of dollars worth of Confederate gold.  The Smithsonian is not government funded and would like to have the gold to finance their museums. The only problem is that the treasure can only be found by locating 5 stones with clues to the location of the treasure.  All of the clues have been encrypted in a code that has been unbreakable for 150 years. Cotton travels from Washington, DC to Arkansas and then to New Mexico to solve the code and locate the treasure.

There is a subplot about the Speaker of the House of Representatives putting a group of Reprentatives from the House Rules Committee to make a change in their rules that the House will only vote on legislation that originated in the House.  This makes the Senate powerless. Some elected officials want to push this rule through while others want to make this change by holding a second Constitutional Convention and write a new Constitution that 3/4ths of the states will have to ratify.  The idea for the rule change originated in the Confederate Constitution.  Most of the Knights were Confederate supporters. Who wins?  You have to read the book to find out.

The Lost Order was an interesting read.  I learned alot about our country's history from the Writer's Note at the end of the book wherein he explained which parts of the story were true and which parts he created in his mind.

Cotton's family history is central to the story and that added to his character growth.  Angus "Cotton" Adams, a Confederate spy, holds the key to everything needed to resolve this hunt for treasure.

While I loved the historical facts surrounding the plot, this installment of the series was not as compelling as earlier books in the series.  The earlier books were page turners but this one had a slower pace.  However, I would give it 4 out of 5 stars.