Niccolò Machiavelli is the most influential political writer of all time. His name has become synonymous with cynical scheming and the selfish pursuit of power, but the real Machiavelli, says Miles Unger, was a deeply humane and perceptive writer whose controversial theories were a response to the violence and corruption he saw around him.Machiavelli’s philosophy was shaped by the tumultuous age in which he lived, an age of towering geniuses and brutal tyrants. His first political ...

As her New York Times bestselling novels always remind us, Anne Perry is a matchless guide to both the splendor and the shame of the British Empire at the height of its influence. In her twentieth William Monk mystery, she brings us to London’s grand Mayfair mansions, where the arrogant masters of the Western world hold sway—and to the teeming Thames waterfront, where one summer afternoon Monk witnesses the horrifying explosion of the pleasure boat Princess Mary, which sends to their death...

Guido Brunetti is baffled by the apparent murder of a seemingly innocuous immigrant man, until a connection to his own youthful past resolves the story of the man’s death and a decades-old disappearanceOn a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from his colleague Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been seen in one of Venice’s canals. The body is soon found, and Brunetti is assigned to investigate the murder of an u...

Late one night, Commissario Guido Brunetti's telefonino rings. A old woman's body has been found in a Spartan apartment on Campo San Giacomo dell'Orio. Brunetti sees some signs of force on the old woman, but they could just as easily have been from the radiator near where she fell. When the medical examiner rules that the woman died of a heart attack, it seems there is nothing to investigate. But he can't shake the feeling that perhaps the woman was threatened.

Donna Leon’s novels have won her countless fans, heaps of critical acclaim, and a place among the top ranks of international crime writers. Through the warmhearted, perceptive, and principled Commissario Guido Brunetti, Leon’s bestselling books have explored Venice in all its aspects: history, tourism, high culture, food, family, but also violent crime and political corruption.In About Face, Leon returns to one of her signature subjects: the environment, which has reached ...

Relic, a Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child thriller that introduces FBI Special Agent PendergastJust days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human...But the museum's directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders.Museum research...

When the body of a man is found in a canal, damaged by the tides, carrying no wallet, and wearing only one shoe, Commissario Guido Brunetti has little to work with. No local has filed a missing-person report, and no hotel guests have disappeared. With Inspector Vianello, Brunetti canvasses shoe stores, and winds up on the mainland in Mestre, outside his usual sphere, where they learn that the man had a kindly way with animals. Meanwhile, animal rights and meat consumption are quickly becom...

When the body of a man is found in a canal, damaged by the tides, carrying no wallet, and wearing only one shoe, Commissario Guido Brunetti has little to work with. No local has filed a missing-person report, and no hotel guests have disappeared. With Inspector Vianello, Brunetti canvasses shoe stores, and winds up on the mainland in Mestre, outside his usual sphere, where they learn that the man had a kindly way with animals. Meanwhile, animal rights and meat consumption are quickly becom...

In the sixteenth novel in Donna Leon’s bestselling Commissario Guido Brunetti series, a mysterious kidnapping leads the Venetian detective into the darkest corners of the medical establishment.“Donna Leon is the undisputed crime fiction queen...[Her] ability to capture the city’s social scene and internal politics is first-rate, as always, but this installment carries extra gravity and welcome plot twists that make it one of the series’ better efforts.” —Sa...

Every advanced society in the galaxy relies on the technology of the Protheans, an ancient species that vanished 50,000 years ago. After discovering a cache of Prothean technology on Mars in 2148, humanity is spreading to the stars—the newest interstellar species, struggling to carve out its place in the greater galactic community.On the edge of colonized space, ship commander and Alliance war hero David Anderson investigates the remains of a top secret military research station—sm...

There is little violent crime in Venice, a serenely beautiful floating city of mystery and magic, history and decay. But the evil that does occasionally rear its head is the jurisdiction of Guido Brunetti, the suave, urbane vice-commissario of policeand a genius at detection. Now all of his admirable abilities must come into play in the deadly affair of Maestro Helmut Wellauer, a world-renowned conductor who died painfully from cyanide poisoning during an intermission at La Fenice.

A visionary work that combines speculative fiction with deep philosophical inquiry, The Sparrow tells the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a scientific mission entrusted with a profound task: to make first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The mission begins in faith, hope, and beauty, but a series of small misunderstandings brings it to a catastrophic end.Praise for The Sparrow“A st...