Literary Fiction Political

Based on the events of May 1958 in France and Algeria, The Praetorians picks up in the footsteps of The Centurions, which was called "a stunning reflection of modern war" by Stanley McChrystal. After turning to tactics of guerilla warfare, a group of French paratroopers serving in the Algerian War is called to answer for actions they consider necessary, however immoral. Fearing another loss of French honor, they plot a coup that results in the return to power of Charles de Gaulle and the death of one of their own.

In Caracas, Venezuela, Adelaida Falcon stands over an open grave. Alone, except for harried undertakers, she buries her mother - the only family Adelaida has ever known. Numb with grief, Adelaida returns to the apartment they shared. Outside the window that she tapes shut every night - to prevent the tear gas raining down on protesters in the streets from seeping in. When looters masquerading as revolutionaries take over her apartment, Adelaida resists and is beaten up. It is the beginning of a fight for survival in a country that has disintegrated into violence and anarchy.

Anne is a former patient from a women's asylum trying to carve out a new life for herself in a world that doesn't understand her. Newcomer Lawrence is desperate to develop his talent as a photographer and escape the restrictions of his puritanical upbringing. Ellis, an army surgeon, has lived through the trauma of one civil war and will do anything to avoid another bloodbath. Each keeps company with the restless beasts of Paris' Menagerie, where they meet, fight their demons, lose their hearts, and rebel in a city under siege.

Nicolle Wallace's third riveting insider Washington novel tells the story of single day in the life of America's 45th President, Charlotte Kramer. The day commences before sunrise with more than a dozen news crews "embedded" with the president, vice president and the White House senior staff to chronicle a typical day at the center of American political power. While the president is delivering a speech in downtown Washington, D.C., the day takes an unexpected and terrifying turn when multiple terrorist attacks are reported from five different U.S. cities. With the cameras and press corps closely watching her every move, the president navigates the ongoing threat to the nation she loves and has vowed to protect and defend. The explosive events of the day force President Kramer to confront long-simmering tensions among her senior staff and within her immediate family.

From the former communications director for the White House and current political media strategist comes a suspenseful and smart novel about the first female president and all dramas and deceptions she faces both in politics and in love. Eighteen Acres, a description used by political insiders when referring to the White House complex, follows the first female President of the United States, Charlotte Kramer, and her staff as they take on dangerous threats.

In contemporary London, a loose-knit group of political vagabonds drifts from one cause to the next, picketing and strategizing for hypothetical situations. But within this world, one particular small commune is moving inexorably toward active terrorism. At its center is Alice Mellings, a brilliant organizer who knows how to cope with almost anything, except the vacuum of her own life.

What if, one day, Europe was to crack along the length of the Pyrenees, separating the Iberian peninsula? In Saramago's lovely fable, the new island is sent spinning, like a great stone raft, towards the Azores. While the authorities panic and tourists and investors flee, three men, two women and a dog are drawn together by portents that burden them with a bemusing sense of responsibility.

Arrested on accusations of witchcraft and treason, Chant finds himself trapped in a cold, filthy jail cell in a foreign land. With only his advocate, the unhelpful and uninterested Consanza, he quickly finds himself cast as a bargaining chip in a brewing battle between the five rulers of this small, backwards, and petty nation. Or, at least, that's how he would tell the story. In truth, Chant has little idea of what is happening outside the walls of his cell, but he must quickly start to unravel the puzzle of his imprisonment before they execute him for his alleged crimes.

A timely and gripping novel in which a son tries to solve the mystery of his father's death - a man who tried but could not forget a troubled past in his native Lebanon. Pierre Cormier had secrets. Though he married twice, became a high-flying lawyer and a father, he didn't let anyone really know him. And he was especially silent about what had happened to him in Lebanon, the country he fled during civil war to come to Canada as a refugee. When, in the midst of a corporate scandal, he went missing after his boat exploded, his teenaged son Cyril didn't know how to mourn him.

It is the summer of 1938 and Phyllis Forrester has returned to England after years abroad. Moving into her sister's grand country house, she soon finds herself entangled in a new world of idealistic beliefs and seemingly innocent friendships. Fevered talk of another war infiltrates their small, privileged circle, giving way to a thrilling solution: a great and charismatic leader, who will restore England to its former glory. At a party hosted by her new friends, Phyllis lets down her guard for a single moment, with devastating consequences.

There were conjugal visits in the slave camps of the USSR. Valiant women would travel continental distances, over weeks and months, in the hope of spending a night with their particular enemy of the people, in the House of Meetings. The consequences of these liaisons were almost invariably tragic. House of Meetings is about one such liaison.

Private investigator Dana Cutler and attorney Brad Miller have overcome more than a few daunting challenges and powerful enemies to see justice done. Now wicked threats old and new are about to bring them together once again. Convicted serial killer Clarence Little has escaped from death row in Oregon, and Brad receives threatening messages in D.C., where he is working for Senator Jack Carson, a high-ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

A biological agent is stolen from a biocontainment lab. Weaponized, it could kill millions, and a desperate national hunt ensues to catch the terrorists before it is too late. Luke Stone, head of an elite FBI department, with his own family still in jeopardy, has vowed to walk away - but when the new president, barely sworn in, calls him, he can't turn his back on her. Shocking devastation follows, winding its way all the way to the president, who finds her own family in jeopardy.

First published in 1873, The Gilded Age is both a biting satire and a revealing portrait of post-Civil War America - an age of corruption when crooked land speculators, ruthless bankers, and dishonest politicians voraciously took advantage of the nation's peacetime optimism. With his characteristic wit and perception, Mark Twain and his collaborator, Charles Dudley Warner, attack the greed, lust, and naiveté of their own time in a work that endures as a valuable social document and one of America's most important satirical novels.

Roland Nair calls himself Scandinavian but travels on a U.S. passport. After ten years' absence, he returns to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to reunite with his friend Michael Adriko. They once made a lot of money here during the country's civil war, and, curious to see whether good luck will strike twice in the same place, Nair has allowed himself to be drawn back to a region he considers hopeless.

To prevent a war in Asia - one that could quickly spread to the rest of the world - Paul Janson and Jessica Kincaid must learn the truth behind a young woman's murder...Prominent US Senator James Wyckoff hires former government agents-turned-private security consultants Janson and Kincaid to locate his teenage son Gregory. Gregory's girlfriend Lynell has been found strangled in a Seoul hotel, and Gregory has fled the city to avoid being arrested for the crime.

Widely regarded as Vidal's ultimate comment on how the American political system degrades those who participate in it, Washington, D.C. is a stunning tale of corruption and diseased ambitions. It traces the fortunes of James Burden Day, a powerful conservative senator who is eyeing the presidency; Clay Overbury, a pragmatic young congressional aide with political aspirations of his own; and Blaise Sanford, a ruthless newspaper tycoon who understands the importance of money and image in modern politics.

A brilliant rendering of a scandalous historical figure, Kate Manning's My Notorious Life is an ambitious, thrilling novel introducing Axie Muldoon, a fiery heroine for the ages. Axie's story begins on the streets of 1860s New York. The impoverished child of Irish immigrants, she grows up to become one of the wealthiest and most controversial women of her day.

It’s been 11 years since Gota has seen Kosmos, yet she still finds herself fantasizing about their intimate year together in Paris. Now it’s 1999, and, working as a journalist, she hears about a film festival in Sarajevo, where she knows Kosmos will be with his theatre company. She takes the assignment to investigate the fallout of the Bosnian war - and to reconnect with the love of her life. But when they are reunited, she finds a man, and a country, altered beyond recognition. Kosmos introduces Gota to Edina, the woman he has always loved.

Le maccarthysme a beau déferler sur l'Amérique au tournant des années cinquante, Ira Ringold se croit à l'abri de la chasse aux sorcières. Non seulement parce que son appartenance au Parti communiste est ignorée même de ses amis, mais surtout parce que l'enfant des quartiers pauvres de Newark, l'ancien terrassier au lourd passé, s'est réinventé en Iron Linn, vedette de la radio, idéale réincarnation de Lincoln, et heureux époux de Eve Frame, ex-star du muet.