Political Historical Fiction

Set during the tumultuous middle of the George W. Bush years - amid the twin catastrophes of the Iraq insurgency and Hurricane Katrina - Landfall brings Thomas Mallon's cavalcade of contemporary American politics, which began with Watergate and continue with Finale, to a vivid and emotional climax.

Bonn, Frühjahr 1974: Erstmals lassen sich DDR-Diplomaten in der Bundeshauptstadt nieder. Die Politprominenz feiert, aber die Folgen verändern mehr als ein Leben. Heike lebt zurückgezogen mit Mann und Kindern in Bonn, manchmal hilft sie im Schreibwarenladen mit. Von ihr aus könnte es immer so weitergehen. Doch eines Tages steht ihr alter Uni-Professor im Laden, der Leiter des Instituts für Graphologie. Er möchte sich Heikes enorme Begabung zunutze machen: Niemand kann so viel aus einer Handschrift herauslesen wie sie.

Königsberg, 1945. Die Rote Armee rüstet sich zum Sturm auf die Stadt, in der eine junge Frau fieberhaft versucht, ihre gefährliche Mission zu vollenden. Doch dabei gerät sie in die Schusslinie der SS.

Somewhere on the South African veld, 1901: At the height of the Boer War, a doctor at a British concentration camp conducts a series of grim experiments on Boer prisoners. His work ends in chaos, but two children survive: a boy named Benjamin, and a girl named Tessa. One hundred years later, a disgraced young police constable is reassigned to the sleepy South African town of Unie, where she makes a terrifying discovery: the body of a woman, burned beyond recognition. The crime soon leads her into her country's violent past.

Fourteenth century England.The country is in turmoil.The King is in debt to the City,and the old order had broken down.The King's mistress,Alice Perrers,becomes the virtual ruler of the country. Dislaked and despised by the Black Prince, her strong connections to the merchants make her a natural ally for the King's ambitious second son,John of Gaunt. Together, they create a powerfull position for one of his henchmen, Geoffrey Chaucer.

Peter and Evangeline have learned of an early, annotated draft of the Constitution that could forever change America's history - and its future. When word gets out about it, it launches a frenzied search, as both sides of the partisan machine. While battling politicians from both sides of the debate, Peter and Evangeline must get to the document first, because they know that if the wrong people find it, they will burn it, stripping the nation of its constitutional moorings.

From the author of the acclaimed novel Watergate comes a galvanizing new novel about the tumultuous administration of the most consequential and enigmatic president of modern times - Ronald Reagan. Finale takes listeners to the political gridiron of Washington in 1986, the wealthiest enclaves of Southern California, and the volcanic landscape of Iceland, where the president engages in two almost apocalyptic days of negotiation with Mikhail Gorbachev.

In 1902, a young girl watches her family's life destroyed by corrupt officials and inscrutable natives. In 1954, the wife of the American ambassador becomes trapped in the intrigue of a Cold War love affair. In 1983, an evangelical missionary discovers that the Good News may not be good news at all to the Mayan refugees she hopes to save. And in 1999, the mother of an adopted Mayan daughter embarks on a roots tour only to find that the history she seeks is not safely in the past.

Una narrazione disincantata e ironica denuncia il vuoto di valori che seguì la disfatta napoleonica. La cittadella descritta da Stendhal è in realtà molto diversa dalla vera cittadella di Parma e, invece, molto simile a Castel Sant'Angelo, dalla cui cella fuggì (calandosi con delle corde), nel Cinquecento, Alessandro Farnese, rinchiuso per aver rapito e sedotto una nobildonna romana. In seguito diviene cardinale e, poi, papa.

Venezia, 1755. Giacomo Casanova è tornato in città, e il precario equilibrio su cui si regge la Repubblica, ormai prossima alla decadenza, rischia di frantumarsi e degenerare nel caos. Lo scenario politico internazionale è in una fase transitoria di delicate alleanze e il disastroso esito della Seconda guerra di Morea ha svuotato le casse della Serenissima. Il doge Francesco Loredan versa in pessime condizioni di salute, e l'inquisitore Pietro Garzoni trama alle sue spalle per ottenere il consenso all'interno del Consiglio dei Dieci e influenzare così la successione al dogado.

Una documentada e inteligente trama que traslada al lector a los tiempos del rey Carlos I. Su mala salud presagia su inminente muerte, y en la corte se desencadena una intrincada intriga política y eclesiástica, a propósito de su sucesión. Un alquimista de Praga puede acabar con el hechizo que padece el rey.

Set in Iran at the end of the 19th century in the Persian royal court of the Qajars, In the Palace of Flowers is an atmospheric historical novel about Jamila, an Abyssinian slave who stands at the funeral of a Persian nobleman, watching the rites with empty eyes. In that very moment, she realizes that her life will never be acknowledged or mourned with the same significance. The fear of being forgotten, of being irrelevant, sets her and Abimelech, a fellow Abyssinian slave and a eunuch, on a path to find meaning.

Inspired by the chaos of the French Revolution, Rafael Sabatini wrote one of the finest historical novels of the early 20th century. Scaramouche is the story of André-Louis Moreau, a lawyer brought up as an orphan in a noble household. Moreau, as a young man in his 20s, has been threading his way through a pleasant life until a close friend is brutally killed in a duel of swords by a member of the aristocracy. Because of Moreau’s vow to seek revenge, his life begins an arc toward becoming a revolutionary.

June 26, 1947. Headlines across America report that an aviator from Idaho witnessed nine pulsating lights flying over the Cascade Mountains at speeds surpassing any aircraft built by humankind. Days later, a desperate Chicago pool hustler, inspired by the news, hitchhikes west in a fever-dream search for a possible extraterrestrial sign. From those he inspires along the way to the Cascades comes a new community - “The Seekers” - devoted to creating a society where divisions of race, ethnicity, and sexuality are a thing of the past.

Ein französischer Diplomat verschwindet 1896 spurlos aus dem Münchner Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten. Vermutlich hat er Informationen zu einer neuen Erfindung besessen, die es ermöglicht, telegrafische Falschmeldungen zu produzieren. In den unruhigen Zeiten, auf die Europa zusteuert, birgt diese Technik eine zerstörerische Macht. Die Ermittlungen führen Gryszinski auf eine verhängnisvolle Reise mit düsterem Ausgang. Zwanzig Jahre später hält ein grausamer Krieg die Welt im Klammergriff. Gryszinskis Sohn Fritz ist mittlerweile erwachsen und wird als Meldegänger an der Front in Verdun eingesetzt.

Leningrad in Angst und Schrecken – Leutnant Rossel jagt einen rätselhaften Serienmörder. Winter 1953: In der weißen Hölle eines sibirischen Gulags ist der ehemalige Leutnant Revol Rossel dem Tod näher als dem Leben, als er überraschend gerettet wird – ausgerechnet von dem Mann, den er mehr als jeden anderen hasst: Major Nikitin. Seinetwegen wird der virtuose Geiger Revol nie wieder eine Violine halten können.

On July 18, 1924, a mob in Tehran killed US foreign service officer Robert Whitney Imbrie. His violent death, the first political murder in the history of the service, outraged the American people. Though Imbrie’s loss briefly made him a cause célèbre, subsequent events quickly obscured his extraordinary life and career.

Dragonetz failed his liege, Eleanor of Aquitaine and is in exile, branded an oathbreaker. But she plans to be Queen of England and gives him one chance to redeem himself. His mission will take him alone into the hostile court of the Welsh princes, Rhys and Meredith, relying on song and sword to win their trust. Unlikely to survive, he intends to die alone.

Lo que comenzó como un día normal en la vida de Valentín Guzmán, espía de la Dirección Federal de Seguridad, acabaría tornándose en una complicada red de intrigas internacionales que cambiaría el rumbo de la historia y a él le arruinaría la existencia para siempre. Esa mañana de septiembre de 1963, Valentín tenía asignada la vigilancia de un individuo apocado, de mirada triste y camisa mal fajada, al que los mandos superiores de la inteligencia nacional seguían por sus posibles nexos con los soviéticos y los cubanos.

¿Podemos imaginar que una sequía pudiera hacer estallar en pedazos el pacto federal mexicano porque un estado, por supervivencia, se negara a dar agua al vecino, o a la mismísima capital de la República? Francisco Martín Moreno da la voz de alarma respecto a la posibilidad de una nueva sequía, como las que han azotado al valle de México desde la época prehispánica. Con su prosa vigorosa y su incansable imaginación, nos revela que la sequía fue el gran detonador de la guerra de Independencia, como también lo fue de la Revolución de 1910.