With appropriate timing—fifty years after MLK died, Steve Berry gives a fictional version of how and why the assassination took place.

The bulk of the story takes place 18 years ago when old paperwork from FBI files resurface about an operation called Bishop’s Pawn. An ex-FBI agent living in Cuba wants to trade the documents for a rare coin. Cotton Malone’s first assignment with the Justice Department is to recover the coin and the files.

Justice and FBI agents, active and retired want to get their hands on the secret files. Some want to destroy them, and others want to make them public. All parties want to know what they contain, what they might reveal about the assassination.

This was a good read, bouncing around Florida, more secrets uncovered at every turn. I think it could have been told in a shorter version without losing anything. I also wonder how Malone could have people dying all around him without getting arrested or killed—not always believable. But the story was interesting enough to keep me reading to the end and the end revealed one more twist.