Book Review: ‘The Omega Factor: A Novel’ By Steve Berry

I’ve been a big fan of Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone series for years. He’s now back with a new book company and has put out his first stand-alone novel in many years. And it features a great character in Nick Lee, who works for the United Nations UNESCO department. The book has a lot of action scenes, as well as a lot of religious information involving the Catholic Church and other religious groups. I am not a religious person and there’s a lot of information, based on real life historical things that happened and it got to be a bit much for me (so I kind of skipped some of it). As an action-adventure novel it’s a great read. The story centers on the stolen panel of the Ghent Artpiece, taken in 1934 and never seen again until recently. Nick is in Belgium to visit Kelsy, the girl who broke his heart many years ago, when she choose the church over him and became a Nun. She is working on the lost panel, which has been found, and she discovers something shocking about it. But then a fire breaks out and her laptop is stolen, which images of the panel, which was destroyed in the fire. This sets off a chain of events and Nick and Kelsy are right in the middle of them. Various religious factions want the lost panel for different reasons. It leads to a showdown and shocking reveals, that go back to Joan Of Arc and Mary, the mother of Jesus. Steve Berry writes great historical fiction action-adventure novels and hopefully at some point he will bring back Nick Lee for more action (he even hints at it in the author notes in the back of the book). And for Cotton Malone fans, a new book will be coming in 2023 (yea!).

You can pick up The Omega Factor in stores on Tuesday, June 7th from Grand Central.