Europa Editions

A crooked cop behind bars makes a dangerous deal in this twist-filled noir thriller set in Italy.

Inspector Biagio Mazzeo is the head of a special unit composed of cops trained in the investigation of organized crime. He is a kind of father figure to these hard men, and often leads them well beyond the confines of what’s legal. But now they’ve been found out. To save his men from being ensnared in a corruption scandal, Mazzeo sacrifices himself and is tried and sentenced to jail time.
His sacrifice, however, isn’t enough to get his men out of trouble. His unit has stolen a shipment of drugs and its owners want it back. This time, Mazzeo’s boys have messed around with the wrong drug cartel, for these are no ordinary criminals. This is the ’Ndrangheta, the infamous Calabrian mafia that is known to stop at nothing to get what’s theirs. From behind bars, Mazzeo has only one way of helping his men: a deal with a young female police officer who promises he will be released and all charges will be dropped if Mazzeo embarks on a suicide mission to put an end to an underworld war.

In a gripping crescendo of violence, vendettas, and corruption, Biagio Mazzeo has to choose sides—because this time it’s not just his badge that’s on the line, but his life.

“Pulixi has an amazing talent for plot development and an ability to throw readers off the scent by working in breathtaking twists.”—Thriller Magazine

“Dangerous, edgy noir crime fiction at its absolute finest and certain to be one of my books of the year” featuring PI Marco “The Alligator” Burrati (reviewingtheevidence.com).

A woman has gone missing. Her husband, too ashamed to admit to the police that he and his wife were part of a ring of sexual adventurers that organized sadomasochistic orgies, turns instead to the Alligator. Marco Burrati enters a depraved demiworld where ferocious deviates prey upon lonely victims. But the savagery of this world is only the first surprise this investigation holds in store for the Alligator. Encountering such violence and desperation triggers memories of his own time in prison. And while the unwritten rule of ex-cons is that you must never talk about your experiences behind bars, the Alligator and his two longtime associates, Max the Memory and Beniamino Rossini, are forced to confront demons they thought long buried.
In The Master of Knots, “the reigning king of Mediterranean noir,” Massimo Carlotto, gives his readers a work of hardboiled noir fiction that is darker than ever before as he digs into the shadowy corners of human experience (The Boston Phoenix). This stunning novel sets a new high-water mark in the literary history of the Mediterranean Noir novel.

“Brooding, sexual, and connected to Italy’s socio-political climate . . . Carlotto’s tight prose makes for a quick and satisfying journey into a world absent of clear-cut morality.”—Publishers Weekly

“The author shows a sure grasp of the double lives of BDSM devotees for whom unmasking would mean calamity.”—Kirkus Reviews

Jack Laidlaw returns in the groundbreaking series. “The Laidlaw books are like fine malt whiskey—the pure distilled essence of Scottish crime writing” (Peter May, international bestselling author).

In this second book in his monumental Laidlaw series, McIlvanney tells the tale of Eck Adamson, an alcoholic vagrant who summons Jack Laidlaw to his deathbed. Probably the only policeman in Glasgow who would bother to respond, Laidlaw sees in Eck’s cryptic last message a clue to the murder of a gangland thug and the disappearance of a student. With stubborn integrity, Laidlaw tracks down a seam of corruption that runs through all levels of Glaswegian society.

★ “Excellent... McIlvanney, the undisputed grandfather of tartan noir, gives reader a complex, existential hero struggling to right myriad wrongs.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“The good news is that Laidlaw is back.”—The Observer

Winner of the Italian PEN Prize: a tale of illicit love and a girl forced into a convent in the early nineteenth century.

1839, Messina, Italy: Agata is the daughter of an aristocrat, albeit an impoverished one, and she has fallen in love with wealthy Giacomo Lepre. Their families, however, view their romance as unacceptable and tawdry—and when Agata’s father dies, her mother decides to ferry her daughter far away, to Naples, where she hopes to garner a stipend from the king.
The only boat leaving Messina that day is captained by young Englishman James Garson. Following a tempestuous passage to Naples, during which Agata confesses her troubles to James, Agata and her mother find themselves rebuffed by the king, and Agata is forced to join a convent. The Benedictine monastery of San Giorgio Stilita is rife with rancor and jealousy, illicit passions and ancient feuds. But Agata remains aloof, devoting herself to the cultivation of medicinal herbs, calmed by the steady rhythms of monastic life. She reads all the books James sends her and follows the news of the various factions struggling to bring unity to Italy.
She has accepted her life as a nun, but she is divided between her yearnings for purity and religiosity and her desire to be part of the world. And she is increasingly torn when she realizes that her feelings for James, though he is only a distant presence in her life, have eclipsed those for Lepre . . .

“Hornby enriches her story with sensuous details of food, fashion, furnishings, and the rules of an extravagant society, savoring local color and personality quirks.”—Publishers Weekly

“An historical novel, a coming-of-age novel, a perfect portrait of family dynamics, The Nun also gives us, in Agata, an unforgettable heroine.”—Gazzetta di Mantova

From the author of The Rage: “A ripping crime tale, impressive in scope and crackling with energy . . . a fascinating portrait of contemporary Ireland” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

The Midnight Choir teems with moral dilemmas, and Dublin emerges as a city of ambiguity: a newly-scrubbed face hiding a criminal culture of terrible variety. Small-time criminals have become millionaire businessmen, the poor are still struggling to survive, and the police face a world where the old rules no longer apply. “Believe me, you want The Midnight Choir with you on holiday,” says the Sunday Business Post. “This is the kind of book you pass on to someone you like, and say ‘read this.’”

“The author does everything well. He conveys beautifully the ritual of cops and their quarry, while evoking the feel of a city where new yuppie influence rubs up against the remnants of a seedy, savage past.”—New York Magazine

“The lethal precision of his closing punches leaves quite a lasting mark.”—Entertainment Weekly

“It’s Kerrigan’s firm control of the procedural genre and the breathtaking twist he gives his plot that show him to be a master of the form.”—Publishers Weekly

“An absorbing, beautifully written tale.”—The Times (London)

“Kerrigan’s moody, unsettling tale explores the criminal underside of Dublin and, by extension, the dark, hidden face of twenty-first-century Ireland . . . Gripping crime fiction in which the setting is unequivocally the protagonist.”—Booklist

“Good news for readers who can appreciate the moral complexities of this flawed hero.”—The New York Times

“An intricately plotted novel that can safely be mentioned in the same breath as those by Rankin.”—Library Journal (starred review)

One PI. Ten crimes. “Stylistically reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill. An exciting and original debut” (The Hoopla Literary Society).

A literary detective story ingeniously told in ten cases. John Dorn is a classic gumshoe. His woman has left him, he lives in his office, and he drinks too much. His one friend, a lawyer named Demetri, hands Dorn an infinite supply of hopeless cases and lost causes, to which Dorn, ever the champion of the underdog and the oppressed, is drawn to “as a sledgehammer is to a kneecap.” A superlative work of hardboiled literary detective fiction, The Midnight Promise wonderfully evokes the underbelly of contemporary Melbourne, its battlers, its hard men, its victims, and its ill-fated heroes.

“[A] powerful hard-boiled debut . . . The cases get progressively more disturbing, both in terms of their subject matter, which include gruesome torture, and their impact on Dorn, a classic world-weary narrator.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Lovitt has a neat way with a yarn. . . . And just when you think he is going to stay close to a kind of downbeat realism, there is a slide into something a little thrillerish and action-packed.”—The Sydney Morning Herald

“[An] artful, Down Under nod to the hard-boiled private eyes of Chandler and Hammett.”—The Christian Science Monitor, “10 Excellent International Thrillers”

“Lovitt is sure-handed in sketching characters, and he laces Dorn’s cases with sardonic humor and prodigious bits of human frailty. . . . Fans of international crime fiction will enjoy Dorn and his milieu.”—Booklist

NOW A MOTION PICTURE NOMINATED FOR THREE OSCARS—Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay—Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Olivia Colman, Jesse Buckley, Paul Mescal, and Dakota Johnson

Another penetrating Neapolitan story from New York Times best-selling author of My Brilliant Friend and The Lying Life of Adults

Leda, a middle-aged divorcée, is alone for the first time in years after her two adult daughters leave home to live with their father in Toronto. Enjoying an unexpected sense of liberty, she heads to the Ionian coast for a vacation. But she soon finds herself intrigued by Nina, a young mother on the beach, eventually striking up a conversation with her. After Nina confides a dark secret, one seemingly trivial occurrence leads to events that could destroy Nina’s family in this “arresting” novel by the author of the New York Times–bestselling Neapolitan Novels, which have sold millions of copies and been adapted into an HBO series (Publishers Weekly).

“Although much of the drama takes place in [Leda’s] head, Ferrante’s gift for psychological horror renders it immediate and visceral.”—The New Yorker

“Ferrante’s prose is stunningly candid, direct and unforgettable. From simple elements, she builds a powerful tale of hope and regret.”—Publishers Weekly

The international bestselling story collection. “Truth and beauty are here brought together with all the visual beauty and power of a major literary work” (Lire Magazine, France).

A cast of extravagant and affecting characters lovingly portrayed by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt animates these eight contemporary fables about people in search of happiness. One of Europe's most popular and bestselling authors, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt captivates the reader with his spirited style and enchanting stories that move effortlessly from the everyday to the fantastical.
The eight stories in this collection, his first to be published in English, represent his best and most imaginative storylines: from the touching and surprising love story between Balthazar, a wealthy author, and Odette, a shop clerk, to the tale of a barefooted princess; from the moving title story about a group of female prisoners in a Soviet gulag to the entertaining portrait of a perennially disgruntled perfectionist. Behind each story lies a simple, if elusive, truth: though we may be frequently blind to it, happiness is often right in front of our eyes.

A “fierce literary thriller” about an exiled woman confronting her past as a prisoner of a repressive theocracy (Kirkus Reviews).

She was known as “Bait 455,” the most famous prisoner in a ruthless theological republic. He was one of the colonels closest to the supreme commander. When they meet, years later, far from their country of birth, a strange, equivocal relationship develops between them. Both their shared past of suffering and old romantic passions come rushing back—accompanied by recollections of the perverse logic of violence that dominated the dictatorship under which they lived. French Iranian author Fariba Hachtroudi’s prize-winning, “tightly plotted” novel “packs complex emotions in a small space, tackling difficult and essential questions about power and our responsibilities to one another” (Kirkus Reviews).

“The story leaves us chilled by the tyrannical culture that created this macabre bond. But at the end, it’s just as much a tale of the capacity of love.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Timeless in its meditations on totalitarianism and the toll it takes on even those who physically escape its clutches.”—Shelf Awareness (starred review)

An American foreign correspondent finds herself in love, and in danger, in this novel that “presents startlingly vivid images of life in Hitler’s Europe” (The New York Times).

Rose Manon grew up in the mountains of Nevada, and is now working as a journalist in New York. In 1935, she is awarded her dream job: foreign correspondent. Posted to Paris, she is soon entangled in romance, an unsolved murder, and the desperation of a looming war.Assigned to the Berlin desk, Manon is forced to grapple with her hidden identity as a Jew, the mistrust of her lover, and an unwelcome visitor on the eve of Kristallnacht. And on the day before World War II is declared, she must choose who will join her on the last train to Paris . . .This carefully researched historical novel reads like a suspense thriller, and interweaves real-life figures into the story, offering “a poignant glimpse into the tensions and anxieties of prewar Europe” (Kirkus Reviews).

“WWII enthusiasts may appreciate this quieter evocative look at a much-examined era.” —Publishers Weekly

Second in the Old Filth trilogy. “An astute, subtle depiction of marriage . . . absolutely wonderful” (The Washington Post).

Acclaimed as Jane Gardam’s masterpiece, Old Filth is a lyrical novel that recalls the fully lived life of Sir Edward Feathers. The Man in the Wooden Hat is the history of his marriage told from the perspective of his wife, Betty, a character as vivid and enchanting as Filth himself.
They met in Hong Kong after the war. Betty had spent the duration in a Japanese internment camp. Filth was already a successful barrister, handsome, fast becoming rich, in need of a wife but unaccustomed to romance. A perfect English couple of the late 1940s.
As a portrait of a marriage, with all the bittersweet secrets and surprising fulfillment of the fifty-year union of two remarkable people, The Man in the Wooden Hat is a triumph. Fiction of a very high order from a great novelist working at the pinnacle of her considerable power, it will be read and loved and recommended by all the many thousands of readers who found its predecessor, Old Filth, so compelling and thoroughly satisfying.

“Funny and affecting . . . It’s remarkable.”—The New York Times Book Review

“The latest occasion to celebrate Gardam . . . [a] superb novel.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR

“Told with quintessentially British humor . . . Gardam’s prose is witty and precise.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“It’s magnificent. . . . Funny, intelligent and immensely moving.”—Kirkus Reviews

“In this acidly funny novel” of life in Soviet Russia, “a cruel comic romp ends as a surprisingly winning story of hardship and resilience” (The New Yorker).

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year

A German Book Award Finalist

A Huffington Post and Wall Street Journal Favorite Read of the Year

When Rosa Achmetowna discovers that her seventeen-year-old daughter, Sulfia, is pregnant, she tries every bizarre home remedy there is to thwart the pregnancy. But despite her best efforts, the baby girl Aminat is born—and immediately wins Rosa’s heart. The dark-eyed Aminat is a Tartar through and through, just like Rosa, and the devious grandmother wastes no time in plotting to steal her away from the woefully inept Sulfia.
When Aminat, now a wild and willful teenager, catches the eye of a sleazy German cookbook writer researching Tartar cuisine, Rosa is quick to broker a deal that will guarantee all three women a passage out of the Soviet Union. But as soon as they are settled in the West, the dysfunctional ties that bind mother, daughter, and grandmother begin to fray.

A nineteenth century Spanish princess is determined to publish her tell-all memoir in this “fresh, fast-moving historical fiction from a master storyteller” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

After her cloistered childhood at the Spanish court, her youth spent in exile, and a loveless marriage, the Bourbon infanta Eulalia gladly departs Europe for the New World. In the company of Thomas Aragon, a small-town bookseller and the son of her childhood wet nurse, she travels first to a Cuba bubbling with revolutionary fervor, and then to the 1893 Chicago World Fair. As far as the public is concerned, she is there as an emissary of the Bourbon dynasty. But secretly, she is in America to find a publisher for her scandalous autobiography, a book that might well turn the old world order on its head.
Latino International Book Award winner Chantel Acevedo brings Bourbon Spain, Revolutionary Cuba, and fin de siècle America vividly to life in her new novel based on a true story.
The Living Infinite is a timeless tale of love, adventure, power and the quest to take control of one’s destiny.

From the author of The Whole Wide Beauty: “Transcendent. What unfolds is a story not just of young love but of how to cope when it is lost and shattered” (Financial Times).

United Kingdom circa the 1980s—Ursula and Jerry find themselves surrounded by hip hairdos and dominating parents. The future looks bleak if they do not change their lives dramatically. Both are itching to escape their current lives and engage with the wider world.Ursula’s work as a teacher takes her far away to India to instruct disabled children, while Jerry accepts a scholarship to Magdalen College—but only to “highlight the absurdity of privilege.”
Their written exchanges are deep, political, and full of irony. All the while, Jerry stays committed to Ursula in mind but not in body, questioning their relationship and the nature of their love.

“Woof . . . succeeds in conveying ‘the infinity of moments’ that make up a lifetime.”—The New Yorker

“An unusual but convincing love story that charts the often-distant lives of her two distinctive and appealing characters, written with wit and a lyrical flourish.”—The Daily Mail

“Engaging . . . In precise, lyrical prose, Woof creates empathy for her characters’ struggles and desires.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Woof is a storyteller and you can tell this from the first few pages.”—The Times (London)

“Woof finds humor and poignancy in the gulf between how things are and how they ought to be.”—The Observer

“[A] quixotic, forceful voice . . . [An] indubitable talent.”—The Guardian

“Successfully grafts a classic hard-boiled detective plot line onto the complexities and dangers of life in modern Israel” (Publishers Weekly).

Levin has been living in Jerusalem for most of his adult life. Retired from the security services, he lives alone a few streets away from his ex-wife, continents away from his children. Adrift, Levin accepts a request to follow the wife of an acquaintance and discover her secret lover. Unlike the chaotic, incomprehensible suicide bombings he’s used to dealing with, at least this assignment seems like one that could possibly be solved.
As Levin watches the woman, Deborah, he begins to assess her as a potential lover might. And when the man her husband believes to be her paramour is murdered—and Deborah, in desperation, turns to Levin with her own unexpected request—his own moral universe becomes as conflicted as the struggle between Arab and Jew for the fate of the fabled city.
From the Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of A Town Called Jericho, this is both a twisting thriller and a “spare, pensive but never brooding study of obsessive love” (Kirkus Reviews).

“The Jerusalem File is styled as a neo-noir mystery story set in contemporary Jerusalem. From the first page, however, the book throws off reflections of its far deeper facets. Joel Stone uses his short and elegantly crafted thriller as the occasion for something much more ambitious—a meditation on the politics of the modern Middle East and, at the same time, the more intimate politics of the human heart . . . A page-turner.”—Los Angeles Times

“[A] masterly investigation of evil, resistance and guilt, billed as the first Arab novel to confront the Holocaust” from the Nobel Prize–nominated author (Publishers Weekly).

Banned in the author’s native Algeria, this groundbreaking novel is based on a true story and inspired by the work of Primo Levi.
The Schiller brothers, Rachel and Malrich, couldn’t be more dissimilar. They were born in a small village in Algeria to a German father and an Algerian mother and raised by an elderly uncle in one of the toughest ghettos in France. But the similarities end there. Rachel is a model immigrant—hard working, upstanding, law-abiding. Malrich has drifted. Increasingly alienated and angry, a bleak future seems inevitable for him. But when Islamic fundamentalists murder the young men’s parents in Algeria the destinies of both brothers are transformed. Rachel discovers the shocking truth about his family and buckles under the weight of the sins of his father, a former SS officer. Now Malrich, the outcast, will have to face that same awful truth alone.

“The German Mujahid deals with the fine line between the destructive power wielded by Islamic fundamentalism today and the power of another movement that left an indelible mark on history: Nazism.”—Haaretz (Israel)

“With extraordinary eloquence, Sansal condemns both the [Algerian] military and the Islamic fundamentalists; he decries that Algeria crippled by trafficking, religion, bureaucracy, the culture of illegality, of coups, and of clans, career apologists, the glorification of tyrants, the love of flashy materialism, and the passion for rants.”—Lire (France)

“The German Mujahid, winner of the RTL-Lire Prize for fiction, is a marvelous, devilishly well-constructed novel.”—L’Express (France)

This acclaimed novel based on true events in the 1928 Tour de France “is a powerful story of grim determination and one man’s forlorn hope to conquer fear” (Publishers Weekly).

In 1928, the Ravat-Wonder cycling team became the first English-speaking peloton to compete in the Tour de France. The riders, hailing from New Zealand and Australia, were treated as exotics and isolated by language and cultural barriers. Underfinanced and undertrained, the team faced one of the toughest routes in the race’s history: 5,476 kilometers over unsealed roads through a landscape heavy with the legacy of the Great War. 162 cyclists began the race that year; only 42 finished.
A deeply introspective book, The Invisible Mile is narrated by a fictional, unnamed rider on the Ravat-Wonder team. Speaking no French and knowing few of his fellow riders, his race becomes a confrontation with memories of the Great War and a quest to understand his own place in its history. He rides on the alternating highs of cocaine and opium, pain and pleasure, victory and defeat. As he nears his final mile along the northern battlefields, trauma, exertion, and his personal demons take over.

“Bruising, beautiful and ultimately transcendent, there’s a perfect thought on sport, humanity or endurance on just about every page.”—Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief

A novel of adventure, survival, and psychological suspense with “a surprise ending worthy of Hitchcock” (Publishers Weekly).

Legend in the academic world has it that Dr. Matthew Prendel, an expert sailor, had been shipwrecked years ago. His boat was attacked by pirates. He survived thanks to an incredible stroke of luck while his entire crew perished, but then found himself embroiled in a ferocious fight for survival between two castaways on a desert island. There, too, he was lucky and came out the victor.But perhaps luck played no part in it. Perhaps something darker was at play, something bigger at stake. The only sure thing is that Matthew Prendel disappeared for five whole years. He has been back in New York now for a while, or so they say. One should never rely entirely on hearsay . . .
A blend of adventure story and noir mystery, The Island of Last Truth is a riveting tale filled with both suspense and incisive psychological observation.

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year: During WWII, a Jewish boy copes with a new homeland, a polio diagnosis—and falling in love for the first time.

Frank Gold’s family, Hungarian Jews, have fled the perils of World War II for the safety of Australia, but not long after their arrival, thirteen-year-old Frank is diagnosed with polio. He is sent to a sprawling children’s hospital called the Golden Age, where he meets Elsa, the most beautiful girl he has ever seen, a girl who radiates pure light.
Soon, Frank and Elsa fall in love, fueling one another’s rehabilitation, facing the perils of illness and adolescence hand in hand—and scandalizing the prudish staff of the Golden Age. Their parents, meanwhile, are coping with their own challenges. Elsa’s mother must reconcile her hopes and dreams with the reality of her daughter’s sickness. Frank’s parents are isolated newcomers in a country they do not love and that does not seem to love them back. Frank’s mother, a renowned pianist in Hungary, refuses to allow the western deserts of Australia to become her home. But her husband slowly begins to free himself from the past and integrate into a new society.
A winner of multiple literary awards in Australia, The Golden Age is a deeply moving novel about hardship and resilience that “graciously captures young love in a quiet and beautifully sculpted story that is easily devoured in one sitting” (Library Journal).

“Poetic intensity suffuses the novel . . . Resisting easy sentimentality, [it] presents polio rehabilitation as a metaphor for postwar recovery.” —The New Yorker“Beautiful.”—The Dallas Morning News

“The Golden Age is pretty much perfect.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The Whitbread Award–winning author of the Old Filth trilogy captures a moment in time for three young women on the cusp of adulthood.

Yorkshire, 1946. The end of the war has changed the world again, and, emboldened by this new dawning, Hetty Fallows, Una Vane, and Lieselotte Klein seize the opportunities with enthusiasm. Hetty, desperate to escape the grasp of her critical mother, books a solo holiday to the Lake District under the pretext of completing her Oxford summer coursework. Una, the daughter of a disconcertingly cheery hairdresser, entertains a romantically inclined young man from the wrong side of the tracks and the left-side of politics. Meanwhile, Lieselotte, the mysterious Jewish refugee from Germany, leaves the Quaker family who had rescued her, to test herself in London. Although strikingly different from one another, these young women share the common goal of adventure and release from their middle-class surroundings through romance and education.

“Gardam’s lean, fast-paced prose is at turns hugely funny and deeply moving. . . . [Her] characters are acutely and compassionately observed.”—Atlantic Monthly

“Quirky, enchanting . . . with lively, laugh-out loud elan.”—The Baltimore Sun

“Splendid . . . Gardam’s style is perfect.”—The New York Times Book Review

“With winning charm and wit . . . Gardam frames her story in dozens of crisp, brief scenes featuring deliciously dizzy conversation.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Ebullient, humorous, and wise, this is a novel to savor.”—Booklist

“The portrait of postwar England as conventions crumble and the country is rebuilt is terrific.”—Publishers Weekly

The acclaimed Cuban American author of Love and Ghost Letters delivers “a wonderful story about the stories we tell each other” set in 1960s Cuba (San Francisco Chronicle).

Cuba, 1963. Hurricane Flora, one of the deadliest in recorded history, is bearing down on the island. Seven women have been forcibly evacuated from their homes and herded into the former governor’s mansion. There they are watched over by another woman—Ofelia, a young soldier of Castro’s new Cuba. As the storm rages and the floodwaters rise, a cigar factory lector named Maria Sirena tells the incredible story of her childhood during Cuba’s Third War of Independence; of her father Augustin, a ferocious rebel; of her mother, Lulu, an astonishing woman who fought, loved, dreamed, and suffered as fiercely as her husband. But stories have a way of taking on a life of their own, and soon Maria will reveal more about herself than she or anyone ever expected.
Chantel Acevedo’s The Distant Marvels is an epic adventure tale, a family saga, a love story, a stunning historical account of armed struggle against oppressors, and a long tender plea for forgiveness. It is, finally, a life-affirming novel about the kind of love that lasts a lifetime and the very art of storytelling itself.

“A profoundly unsettling, brilliantly executed, and deeply humane depiction of a slow slide toward an unspeakable act . . . A remarkable novel” (Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven).

Judith has been visiting her mother, Stephanie, in prison once a month for the last eight years. She still can’t bring herself to talk with her mother about what brought them here—or about Nathaniel, the man whose religious cult almost cost them their lives.
When Stephanie first meets him, she is a struggling single mother and Nathaniel is a charismatic outsider, unlike anyone she’s ever known. In deciding to join the group he’s founded, Stephanie thinks she’s doing the best thing for her daughter: a new home, a new purpose. Judith and Stephanie are initiated into a secret society whose “followers” must obey the will of a zealous prophet. As Stephanie immerses herself in her new life, Judith slowly realizes the moral implications of the strict lifestyle Nathaniel preaches. Tensions deepen, faith and doubt collide, and a horrifying act of violence changes everything. In the shattering aftermath, it seems that no one is safe.
With “propulsive plotting” (The Guardian), The Followers is a novel about love, hope, and identity that asks: are we still responsible for our actions if we remake ourselves in someone else’s image? And can there be a way back?

“With skillful judgment, Wait shows us that not everyone can be trained or scared into submission. The tenderness and the transformative nature of the ending are truly moving.”—The Independent

“Brooding tension . . . building to a page-turning finish.”—Daily Mail

A novel of love, family, and a fight for freedom in Iran featuring a “formidable and hard-to-forget heroine” (Publishers Weekly).

In the early 1920s, in the remote Persian village of Ghamsar, two young people dreaming of a better life fall in love and marry. Sardar brings his bride, Talla, with him across the mountains to the suburbs of Tehran, where the couple settles down and builds a home. From the outskirts of the capital city, they will watch as the Qajar dynasty falls and Reza Khan rises to power as Reza Shah Pahlavi.
Into this family of illiterate shepherds is born Bahram, a boy whose brilliance and intellectual promise are apparent from a very young age. As he grows older, Bahram will become a fervent follower of reformer Mohammad Mosaddegh and will participate firsthand in his country’s political and social upheavals, putting himself in mortal danger, in this prize-winning, “compelling book [that] raises important questions about indulgence, gender, community, and the impact of politics on everyday life” (Kirkus Reviews).

“Exquisite . . . the narrative evolves from an intimate chronicle of Talla and Sardar’s provincial lives into a sweeping tour through early-20th-century Iran.”—The New York Times

Fuses a traditional rural folk tale with the kind of political allegory popular around the time of the Spanish Civil War . . . A satisfying twist” (The Wall Street Journal).

In 1930s Spain, in an isolated valley of the Pyrenees, an aging teacher reconstructs a bloody and tragic event that seemed destined to remain forever hidden behind a wall of silence. He alone can penetrate appearances and grasp the iron laws determining the lives of all those who live in this place—this valley where nature is miserly and leaves little room for poetic contemplation or an excess of feelings. He alone remembers his protégé, Ramón, a shepherd, who, no more than a child, fell in love with Alba, the only daughter of the region’s most powerful and influential landowner.
The rich and powerful conspire to thwart the love between Ramón and Alba, and in doing so they incite a feud that will extend beyond all reason. Thus begins a vigorous, dramatic story of rebellion and a heroic quest for freedom that “offers both passionate, romantic derring-do and a vivid picture of class-driven mob hysteria” (The Wall Street Journal).

“A story that is sweeping in its narrative and evocative in its detail . . . The sort of romance to stir the coldest of hearts.” —The Irish Times

“Think The Sopranos meets Goodfellas—without the Americanized gloss . . . [A] not-for-the-faint-hearted novel by an Italian master” (Reading Matters).

In The Colombian Mule, the author called “the reigning king of Mediterranean noir” (The Boston Phoenix) and “the best living Italian crime writer” (Il Manifesto) brings to riveting life the story of Arías Cuevas, who sets in motion a chain of bloody events when police catch him trying to carry a shipment of La Tía’s cocaine into Italy. The intended recipient of the coke appears to have been art smuggler Nazzareno Corradi. But Corradi has been set up. He hires a PI known as “the Alligator” to get him out of the mess he’s in. Meanwhile, La Tía, a notoriously ruthless figure in the Colombian drug trade, is determined to move her operation to Italy, where cocaine has become all the rage among the professional classes. There’s only one thing standing in her way: the Alligator. The Alligator, an ex-con-turned-investigator, and his two companions, former underworld heavy Beniamino Rossini and Max the Memory, are among Massimo Carlotto’s most vivid noir creations. Together, the three men will wade deep into a criminal world of few scruples, testing their own strict and specific moral code along the way.

“The morally ambiguous tone makes this an intriguing read, and the suspense is well maintained.”—Manchester Evening News

“A fascinating glimpse into Italian culture and justice system. It’s sparely written and though quite short, there’s a lot of action . . . dark and gritty.”—Euro Crime “[A] brilliant book.”—The Friendly Shelf

A Paris police detective is haunted by a murderous evil in this chillingly macabre mystery.

Murder and depravity are Police Commissioner Amédée Mallock’s daily bread. As far as he is concerned, mankind has been thoroughly abandoned by God, and the visions that haunt him do nothing to disabuse him of this notion. But nothing he has encountered has prepared him for the sudden appearance of a serial killer dubbed “the Makeup Artist.” The bodies of the killer’s first victims, found in four separate neighborhoods of Paris, are monstrous works of art, demented expressions of corrupted piety. These crimes are unprecedented in their ferocity and their intricacy—and the deeper Mallock investigates, the greater the mysteries and the enigmas. Foremost among them: is a solution to a series of crimes behind which the devil himself seems to lurk even conceivable?
A blend of noir mystery, horror, and theological thriller, The Faces of God is ideal for fans of dark, atmospheric crime fiction.

Winner of the Strega Prize: a young girl in Tuscany finds hope amid heartbreak in “a story about the lonely daydreams of outsiders” (Kirkus Reviews).

Smart, funny thirteen-year-old Luna lives in a small town on the coast of Tuscany. When her beloved brother, Luca, drowns in a surfing accident, Luna’s mother retreats into herself, while Luna believes that Luca still speaks to her through a whalebone washed up on the nearby shore. At school, stricken by her loss yet determined to carry on, Luna makes a new friend and ally, the eccentric Zot, a boy from Chernobyl. Luna’s fantasies will soon clash with the lies—even the well-intentioned ones—of the adult world, in this touching, funny, and imaginative novel by the celebrated author of Live Bait.

The author of the Commissario Ricciardi series “manages to conjure up the terrifying darkness at the heart of a serial killer in this chilling procedural” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

The chaotic, shadowy city of Naples proves the perfect hunting ground for a killer dubbed “The Crocodile” by the press. Like a crocodile, when he devours his own children, he cries. And like a crocodile he is a perfect killing machine: He waits and watches until his prey is within range, and then he strikes.Three young people with very diverse backgrounds have been found murdered in three different neighborhoods, each shot with a single bullet, execution style. While his colleagues see little or no connection, Inspector Giuseppe Lojacono, smells a rat. Once an esteemed member of the mobile unit of the Agrigento police force, Lojacono was accused of leaking sensitive information to the mob and has now lost everything—first and foremost the love of his wife and daughter. But now he’s been given a second chance and a shot at clearing his name. A young magistrate has heard of his preternatural skills and his incredible powers of observation and she thinks a man like him is needed in Naples. So it is that Inspector Lojacono is charged with finding the link between the three dead bodies. At the root of these murders, he will discover, is a pain that still burns, a sense of guilt than cannot be purged, and one all-consuming love.

“A wonderfully suspenseful novel in which de Giovanni restores life to the cliché of the world-weary detective.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Offers an elegant narrative and vividly rendered characters. It’s genuinely seductive.” —Booklist

“In pristine, elegant prose,” the Costa Prize–winning author “creates an indelible portrait of a mysterious woman” and her quest for total independence (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Maud enters Tim’s life as no one else could: by falling straight past him, seemingly to her death, then standing up and walking away. From that moment on, Tim is desperate to love her, rescue her, reach her. Yet there is nothing to suggest Maud has any need of him. She is already complete. A woman with a talent for survival, she works long hours and loves to sail—preferably on her own.
When Maud finds her unfulfilling marriage tested by unspeakable tragedy, she attempts to escape from her husband and society’s hypocrisy. In her quest, she encounters the impossible and pushes her mind and body to their limits.
A wise and thrilling portrait of an irreducible heroine who asks no permission and begs no pardon, The Crossing explores a truth that’s absent from most contemporary literature.

“An extraordinary portrait of an enigmatic woman.”—The Guardian

“A raw and compelling portrait of 411 BC Greece in which women must fight for justice and democracy” by the Strega Prize–winning Italian novelist (La Stampa).

Athens, 411 BC. As the Peloponnesian War draws to a close, a political coup begins to take shape in Athens. Veterans of the infamous battle of Mantinea, Thrasyllus, and Polemon now live as humble farmers in the countryside. They are determined to find influential husbands for their daughters, Glycera and Charis, but first they must defend Athens from the oligarchs plotting to reinstate tyrannical rule. Young and impatient, Glycera and Charis soon become infatuated with their neighbor’s rich and arrogant son, Cimon. When their fathers travel to Athens to see Aristophanes’s latest comedy, the girls use the chance to accept an invitation to Cimon’s house . . . with no notion of what awaits them on their visit.
Alternating between the secret drama playing out in the countryside and the public one playing out onstage in Athens, Alessandro Barbero weaves “a compelling story of women’s valiant struggles to maintain their dignity in a misogynistic society” (Historical Novel Society).

From the international bestselling author: “An inventively gratifying libertine comedy of errors . . . This monumental novel is satisfying at all turns” (Foreword Reviews).

The Carousel of Desire is a sexual and romantic saga told with a master storyteller’s feel for character and plot and a philosopher’s abiding preoccupation with what makes life truly worthwhile. With tenderness and infectious delight, Schmitt tells an exuberant tale about class and community and about the vastness of human experience. Schmitt’s love of coincidence and serendipity is surpassed only by his affection for his flawed, all-too-human characters: Zachary Bidermann, the powerful European Union commissioner; Faustina, the fashionable book publicist; François-Maxime de Couvigny, the happily married banker with more than a few secrets; Marcelle, enamored with a handsome illegal immigrant; Mademoiselle Beauvert, who makes love with her parrot, Copernicus. These and many more unforgettable characters animate this story of simmering desire and the antics of the mischievous and playful god Eros.
Schmitt’s inclusive, affirming vision of human sexuality is refreshingly free of moral judgment, yet enriched by an understanding of the complex ethics of human relationships and the redemptive power of love.

“A narrative tour de force. Liberated, libertine, libertarian. A brilliant celebration of sexual and moral tolerance.”—La Provence

“A terrific encyclopedia of love and desire. A beautiful novel, at once light, funny, and somber.”—L’Express

“One of Mr. Schmitt’s chief strengths is the ability to precisely chronicle the shifts in his characters’ mental and emotional states, a skill he employs to illuminate the changeable nature of the mind and heart.”—Electric Literature

Based on a true story, this “extremely compelling novel” delves into the mind of a murderer (Booklist).

The Avenue of the Giants follows Al Kenner as he progresses from antisocial adolescent to full-fledged serial killer in the turbulent 1960s and ’70s. A giant at over seven feet tall with an IQ higher than Einstein’s, Al was never ordinary. His life is tainted by his parents’ divorce and his mother’s abusive behavior, and it takes a chilling turn on the day of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Al spends five years in a psychiatric hospital, and although he convinces the staff that he is of sound mind, he continues to harbor vicious impulses. He goes on to lead a double life—befriending the Santa Cruz, California police chief and contemplating marrying his daughter, all the while committing a series of brutal murders.
Delving into the mind of this complex killer, this novel by the prize-winning author of The Officers’ Ward was inspired by the real-life case of Edmund Kemper, and powerfully evokes an America torn between the pacifism of the hippie movement and the violence of Vietnam.

The “engrossing” sequel to The Crocodile kicks off an Italian crime fiction series by the author of the bestselling Commissario Ricciardi novels (Publishers Weekly).

They’ve made a fresh start at the Pizzofalcone precinct of Naples. They fired every member of the investigative branch after they were found guilty of corruption. Now, there’s a group of detectives, a new commissario, and a new superintendent. The new cops immediately find themselves investigating a high-profile murder that has the whole town on edge.
Heading the investigation is Inspector Lojacono, known as “the Chinaman,” a cop with a checkered past who is currently riding a reputation as a crack investigator after having captured a serial killer known as “The Crocodile.” Lojacono’s partner is Aragona, who wants to be known as “Serpico,” but the name doesn’t stick. Luigi Palma, a.k.a. “Gigi,” is the commissario, Francesco Romano, known as “Hulk,” is the slightly self-deluded lieutenant. Lojacono, Aragona, Palma, and Romano are joined by a cast of cops portrayed by bestselling author Maurizio de Giovanni with depth and intimate knowledge of the close-knit world of police investigators.
De Giovanni’s award-winning and bestselling novels, all set in Naples, offer a brilliant vision of the criminal underworld and the lives of the cops in Europe’s most fabled, atmospheric, dangerous, and lustful city.

“Colorful, fully drawn characters and several intriguing subplots help propel the plot to a satisfying resolution.”—Publishers Weekly

“De Giovanni provides satisfyingly logical answers to every riddle . . . Despite the Neapolitan setting, the crew of mismatched cops may remind you of similar teams in Sweden, New York, or Hollywood. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”—Kirkus Reviews

The first Inspector Sebag mystery. “The plot is intricate and tense . . . [A] fantastic French ticking-clock thriller” (Daily Mail).

It’s the middle of a long hot summer on the French Mediterranean shore and the town is teeming with tourists. Sebag and Molino, two tired cops who are being slowly devoured by dull routine and family worries, deal with the day’s misdemeanors and petty complaints at the Perpignan police headquarters. But then a young Dutch woman is found murdered on a beach at Argelès, and another one disappears without a trace in the alleys of the city. Is it a serial killer obsessed with Dutch women? Maybe. The media senses fresh meat and moves in for the feeding frenzy. Out of the blue, Inspector Gilles Sebag finds himself thrust into the middle of a diabolical game. In order to focus on the matter at hand, he will have to put aside his cares, forget his suspicions about his wife’s unfaithfulness, ignore his heart murmur, and get over his existential angst. But there is more to the case than anyone suspects.

“This is a superlative debut novel from the world of French noir. A perfect beach read.”—La Repubblica

“[An] appealing hero . . . a crime novel très formidable.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Georget provides great details along with a pace that lets the reader soak up those late-night swims and wine-soaked dinners in the end-of-summer Mediterranean heat.”—Star Tribune

“A stylish debut novel . . . A superior beach read for fans of international crime.”—Booklist

The seventh Commissario Ricciardi historical mystery is “an intricately layered whodunit set in Fascist Naples . . . A richly textured story” (Kirkus Reviews).

In the middle of a summer heat wave, as Naples prepares for one of its most important holy days, a renowned surgeon falls to his death from the window of his office. For Commissario Ricciardi and Brigadier Maione it is the beginning of an investigation that will bring them into contact with the most torrid, conflicting, and enduring of human passions. In the world Ricciardi and Maione are about to enter, infidelity appears inextricable from the most joyful expressions of love, and, this interdependence sows doubt and uncertainty in both men, compromising their own attempts at love.
Ricciardi is one of the most intriguing and unique figures to appear in crime fiction in recent years. He possesses the dubious gift of being able to see and hear the last seconds in the lives of those who have suffered a violent death. This ability makes him an unusually effective investigator but plagues him and renders human relationships almost impossible. He is a classic noir hero and the cursed son of a city that, for all its Mediterranean splendor, is a perfect noir city.
In this new installment in the Commissario Ricciardi series, Maurizio de Giovanni creates a large cast of unforgettable characters and a compelling, suspenseful plot that demonstrates once more why he is considered one of the best crime writers working today.

“Complex, lyrical . . . A searing look at the tortured soul of the lead makes this entry especially memorable.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From the author of I Regret Everything comes this “great novel. It’s satirical, it’s political, it’s sexual. All the things that I love dearly” (Larry David, creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld).

Seth Greenland’s timely novel is a smart and darkly amusing dissection of the American political establishment in all its sordid glory. Set in the hardscrabble California desert community of Desert Hot Springs and the manicured enclave of Palm Springs, the novel lives at the intersection of the political disarray of today.
In this sun-blasted territory, with its equally arid culture, a fiercely contested congressional election is in progress. The wily incumbent, Randall Duke, is unburdened by ethical considerations and his opponent, Mary Swain, is a sexy and well-financed newcomer who does not have a firm grip on American history or elemental economics.
As election day nears, the exploitable backgrounds of these two candidates are teased out by the desire to one-up each other. The campaign gets carried away when the personal escapades of friends and family spill over into the election, including lesbian love triangles, and sudden spiritual enlightenment.

“A wild entertainment as well as a novel about the way we live now that dares to dance with the profound.”—Los Angeles Times

“The Angry Buddhist approaches all its characters with reliable misanthropy (not for nothing does Larry David provide this book’s most visible blurb). And its story unfolds with dexterous ease . . . A fine, high-end beach read for this election season.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A novel about three brothers, The Angry Buddhist is a steamy mix of murder, matching manga kitten tattoos, and a fierce congressional election.”—Lion’s Roar

The final book in the Marseilles trilogy, following Chourmo, from “a talented writer who draws from the deep, dark well of noir (The Washington Post).

Ex-cop, loner, Fabio Montale returns in this stunning conclusion to Jean-Claude Izzo’s Marseilles trilogy. Italian Mafiosi are hunting journalist-activist Babette Bellini, and the body count is growing as they close in on their prey. In desperation, Bellini seeks help from her former lover, Montale. Before he has time to shake off his most recent hangover, Montale is receiving sinister phone calls from men with Italian accents who want him to find Bellini for them. Like a woman he can’t leave, like strong liquor he can’t refuse, Marseilles lures Montale back into its violent embrace.
Solea is Izzo’s heartfelt cry against the criminal forces corrupting his beloved city. It is his farewell to Marseilles and to its ideal protagonist, Fabio Montale. It concludes an unforgettable trilogy that epitomizes the aspirations and ideals of the Mediterranean noir movement.

Praise for Izzo’s Marseilles Trilogy

“One of the masterpieces of modern noir.”—The Washington Post

“Izzo’s ability to describe Marseilles and to make his readers feel the multiracial reality of that city so directly and authentically is fascinating.”—Andrea Camilleri, New York Times–bestselling author of the Inspector Montalbano series

“Sensationally readable . . . Full of fascinating characters.”—Chicago Tribune

“Terrific.”—The New York Times

“Like the best noir writers—and make no mistake, he is among the best—Izzo not only has a keen eye for detail . . . but also digs deep into what makes men weep.”—Time Out New York

“An extraordinary book, a gripping trip back through time to discover a different but still unique Venice and its political intrigues and mysteries” (Art as a Part of Culture).

In a medieval Venice ravaged by famine and orgiastic revelries, the protagonists of The Apothecary’s Shop explore the depths of the city and the paths to the supernatural in their search for a missing child.
The young Costanza, of the noble Grimani family, has disappeared. Edgardo, the family scribe, vows to return the girl to her family, an ambitious enterprise considering his failing eyesight. Physical ailments and emotional torment hinder Edgardo’s search, for as he undertakes this perilous investigation, images of his own lost love—Kallis, a slave from the Far East who disappeared in a storm years ago—are resurrected. Help arrives in the form of Abella, the only female doctor in Venice. From her, Edgardo learns of occult medical practices and of Sabbatai’s Apothecary, where the city’s most desperate citizens seek heretical remedies and concoctions to sooth their suffering. It is here, however, where the secret of Constanza’s disappearance may lie.
Venal physicians and legitimate healers, unscrupulous relatives, mystics and apothecaries, wealthy nobility and the wretched poor, undertakers, Eastern merchants, African slave traders, each plays a role this ingeniously constructed mystery set in the busy and licentious trade port of Venice.

“Nobody writes about Venice like Roberto Tiraboschi in The Apothecary’s Shop.”—L’Unità

“An extremely elegant intrigue, with cosmopolitan influences that reflect the character of the city, several unlikely plot twists, and the panache to put just enough confidence in the mind of the reader to keep the pages turning quickly.”—Seattle Review of Books

The acclaimed Brazilian author’s prize-winning, “captivating [and] impeccably structured novel” of a therapist and the trans patient he lost (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Armando, one of the most renowned therapists in São Paulo, is nearing the end of a long, illustrious career. Against his better judgment he agrees to take on a new patient: Sergio, the teenage son of a wealthy Brazilian businessman. Sergio suffers from malaise and his parents are concerned. But after a number of sessions, Sergio abruptly interrupts his course of therapy following a trip to New York, saying only that he has found his own path to happiness and must pursue it alone.
Though perplexed, Armando lets the matter rest without further ado. That is, until he learns from the boy’s mother that Sergio has moved to New York in order to become Sandra. Shocked by this revelation and disappointed in his own lack of awareness, Armando embarks on a journey to discover the truth about his former patient—and about himself.Winner of the Paraná Literary Prize for Best Novel, Sergio Y. is “a beautiful, moving, profound book . . . Wonderfully accomplished and subtle” (Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree).

Around the world, the children of the rich are disappearing . . . A chilling thriller starring kidnapping expert Charles Boxer, “a great character” (Kirkus Reviews).

Kidnapping expert Charles Boxer is contemplating retirement. He’s found a measure of contentment, even as a mystery from his own past gnaws at his sense of justice. Meanwhile, his ex-wife, Mercy, balances a complicated personal life with an even more precarious professional one in the woefully under-resourced metropolitan police department. But both are suddenly pulled back into action when six children of ultrawealthy families vanish—families from India, China, Russia, Australia, Germany, and the United States—taken by a ruthlessly efficient organization with a single astonishing demand.
Trapped, off-balance, and with little left to lose, they plunge into a cauldron of warring intelligence agencies, morally destitute billionaires, and human traffickers, coming finally to a fateful reckoning that will forever change them—in this smart, suspenseful thriller by a Gold Dagger and Gumshoe Award–winning author.

“A great character whose emotional trials are exciting to follow.”—Kirkus Reviews

The “razor-sharp political thriller set during the dying days of Berlusconi’s regime” that inspired the Netflix original series (New Statesman).

This “fast-moving crime thriller” takes a deep dive into a politically and financially corrupt contemporary Italy, where crime families, corrupt politicians, and new rabid criminal elements battle each other for control of a glittering prize—a multibillion-dollar development twenty miles from the Italian capital (Publishers Weekly).
During the final days of Silvio Berlusconi’s reign, a massive development proposal that will turn the depressed coastal settlement of Ostia into a gambling paradise, a Las Vegas on the Mediterranean, is winding its way through the Italian legislature thanks to the sponsorship of politicians in the pay of crime syndicates. It’s business as usual in the Italian capital. Or so it seems. A vicious gang of local thugs loyal to nobody but themselves is insisting on a bigger cut than agreed upon. The Mafia and their political puppets aren’t going to back down without a fight. And one policeman, pushed to the sidelines, may not be able to stop an all-out war . . .With a plot that “thrills from the get-go,” Suburra is a compelling work of international crime fiction and the inspiration for the popular Netflix series of the same name (New Statesman).

“A novel of Rome, meaning that the city itself, in all its history, glory, and despair, is skillfully sewn into the fiber of the tale. . . . Evokes Mario Puzo’s famous trilogy and other classics of the genre.”—Kirkus Reviews

An “enthralling” novel of growing up amid the terrors of World War II that offers “a superb lesson in resilience and the importance of imagination” (La Presse).

Julek has assumed countless identities, lived with numerous families, and worked as a secret agent for the Resistance. He was raised in an orphanage (despite having two mothers) and he knows how to speak the language of dogs. All this at the tender age of fourteen!
Julek’s story begins in Warsaw on the eve of World War II and ends in Paris after the city’s triumphant liberation. We witness the darkest hours of the past century and the effects of war through the eyes of an extraordinary boy who never loses his sense of wonder. Julek’s adventure becomes an incredible lesson in survival and a testament to the power of a child’s heart.

“So searing it will burn forever into your memory. McIlvanney is the original Scottish criminal mastermind.”—Christopher Brookmyre, best-selling author of the Jack Parlabane Thrillers

The original Jack Laidlaw novels that changed the face of Scottish mystery writing.

When his brother is killed in a tragically banal road accident, Jack Laidlaw sets off on a journey through Glasgow’s underworld. There he will discover the truth about his brother and the city he thought he knew better than anybody. He will face some even harder truths about himself. Alive with wit, suspense, brilliant writing, all leading to a shattering climax, this third book in the acclaimed Laidlaw series does not disappoint.

The greatest examples of Scottish crime writing and the founding novels of what has since become known as Tartan Noir, McIlvanney’s groundbreaking Laidlaw books have earned the status of classic crime fiction.

The third Laidlaw novel from the Father of Tartan Noir explores “the ruin of the body, the corruption of the soul and the shattering of society.”—The Wall Street Journal

In Victorian Cornwall, a doctor risks her marriage to fight for female asylum patients: “One of the most memorable heroines of recent fiction ” (The Times, London).

Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize for Historical Fiction

Ally Moberley, a recently qualified doctor, never expected to marry until she met architect Tom Cavendish. But only weeks into their marriage, Tom sets out for Japan, leaving Ally as she begins work at the Truro Asylum in Cornwall.
Horrified by the brutal attitudes of male doctors and nurses toward their female patients, Ally plunges into the institutional politics of women’s mental health at a time when madness is only just being imagined as treatable. She has to contend with a longstanding tradition of permanently institutionalizing women who are deemed difficult, all the while fighting to be taken seriously in a profession dominated by men.
Meanwhile, Tom is overseeing the building of lighthouses, and has a commission from a wealthy collector to bring back embroideries and woodwork. As he travels Japan in search of these enchanting objects, he begins to question the value of the life he left in England. As Ally becomes increasingly absorbed in the moral importance of her work, and Tom pursues his interests on the other side of the world, they will return to each other as different people.
From the blustery coast of Western England to the landscape of Japan, Signs for Lost Children offers a “fine exploration of marriage and the complex minds of ‘lost children’—that is, all of us” (The New York Times Book Review).

“Compelling . . . A quietly devastating portrait of the way identity crumbles when you’ve nothing, or no one, to pin it to.”—The Guardian

A troubled young man’s bright future takes a strange turn when his mother commits murder in this “riveting and disturbing novel” of 1990s Washington State (The Guardian).

A Guardian and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2016. Joseph March, a twenty-one-year-old working-class kid from Seattle, is on top of the world. He has just graduated college and his limitless future beckons. But Joe’s life suddenly implodes when he starts to suffer from the symptoms of bipolar disorder. Then, not long after, his mother kills a man she’s never met with a hammer. Joe moves to White Pine, Washington, where his mother is serving time and his father has set up house. Followed there by his girlfriend, Tess Wolff, Joe’s life falls into a daily rhythm of prison visits followed by beer and pizza at a local bar. Meanwhile, Joe’s mother, Anne-Marie, is gradually becoming a local heroine. Many see her crime as a furious, exasperated act of righteous rebellion. Tess, too, has fallen under her spell. Spurred on by Anne-Marie’s example, Tess enlists Joe in a secret, violent plan that will forever change their lives.
Shelter in Place is a stylish novel about the hereditary nature of mental illness, the fleeting intensity of youth, the obligations of family, and the dramatic consequences of love.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic shares recollections and reviews from his career at the Washington Post.

In this book, Jonathan Yardley considers lesser-known works from renowned authors and underappreciated talents, and offers fresh takes on old favorites. Yardley’s reviews of sixty titles include fiction by Gabriel García Márquez, John Cheever, and Henry Fielding; the autobiography of Louis Armstrong; essays by Nora Ephron; and Margaret Leech’s history of Washington during the Civil War.
Second Reading is also the memoir of a passionate and lifelong reader told through the books that have meant the most to him. Playing the part of both reviewer and bibliophile, Yardley takes on Steinbeck and Salinger, explores the southern fiction of Shirley Ann Grau and Eudora Welty, looks into a darker side of Roald Dahl, and praises the pulp fiction of William Bradford Huie and the crime novels of John D. MacDonald.
Collected from a popular Washington Post column of the same name, Second Reading is an incisive and entertaining look at the career and times of an esteemed critic and the venerable books that shaped him. This delightful consideration reminds readers that thoughtful criticism and a lively sense of fun can exist side by side.

A novel of one dying man’s act of defiance against the Nazis. “This slender, confident debut novel is deliciously atmospheric and tense” (Financial Times).

Raphaël Jerusalmy’s debut novel takes the form of the journal of Otto J. Steiner, a former music critic of Jewish descent suffering from tuberculosis in a Salzburg sanatorium in 1939. Drained by his illness and isolated in the gloomy sanatorium, Steiner finds solace only in music. He is horrified to learn that the Nazis are transforming a Mozart festival into a fascist event. Steiner feels helpless at first, but an invitation from a friend presents him with an opportunity to fight back. Under the guise of organizing a concert for Nazi officials, Steiner formulates a plan to save Mozart that could dramatically change the course of the war.

“A dazzling, striking debut, as intriguing as its author . . . a compelling success.” —L’Express

“Steiner’s fictional diary is a brief but powerful story about a brave feat recorded for a son Steiner will never see again.”—Historical Novel Society

“If we can imagine a part of the contents [of the intimate journal kept by Steiner], in direct relation to the somber reality of the period, it does not reserve fewer considerable surprises that situate it well beyond a simple chronicle of the time.”—L’Humanité

“The strength of Saving Mozart is its focus on one man’s limited experience of horror.”—Three Guys One Book

“Reads like an unexpected gift.”—The Big Issue

“The best living Italian crime writer” immerses readers in a gritty noir novel featuring PI Marco “the Alligator” Buratti (Il Manifesto).

This novel, by one of Italy’s bestselling crime novelists, provides a unique perspective on the criminal and social dynamics that dominate contemporary Italy.
One of the many robberies that plague Northeast Italy goes wrong and ends with a brutal murder. The police investigation turns up nothing. Two years later, Marco Buratti, alias “the Alligator,” is asked to look into the crime and find out who was responsible.
Buratti’s employer is young, the youngest client he has ever had; he is only twelve years old and is the son of one of the victims. The Alligator realizes right from the start that the truth is cloaked, twisted, shocking. Together with his associates, Beniamino Rossini and Max the Memory, he finds himself mixed up in a story involving contraband gold and blood vendettas between criminal gangs.

“Finishing an Alligator mystery is like waking up after an all-night bender with your best friends. . . . You’re not 100 percent sure what happened. But you know you had a good time.”—Cedar Rapids Gazette

“Melancholy-tinged, Carlotto’s novel is quite nicely turned and solid entertainment.”—The Complete Review

A novel that’s “brilliant on sex, brilliant on bereavement and death, brilliant on god, brilliant on dottiness” from the acclaimed author of Old Filth (A. N. Wilson, Evening Standard).

The story of a motherless girl named Faith and her family and close friends, all of whom are determined to see her live a happy life.
Faith’s mother died in childbirth; her overworked father cannot raise his child alone; and her unconventional grandmother refuses to acknowledge the child whose birth took away the daughter she loved. And so a motley crew of family and friends converges to see that Faith is brought up correctly. The concerned parties include Faith’s uncle, who runs a commune in northern England; the Tibetan refugees who have moved in with him; and the splendidly bickering paternal grandparents. What ensues is a brilliant comedy of manners set equally amidst high society and low.
Faith Fox is a story that explores the wonder of the human heart in all its thunderous eccentricity. Gardam has mastered the essence of age and youth and above all nonconformity. Her memorable characters are sure to delight.

“Wonderful, sharply observed, deeply funny.”—The Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“[A] cleverly wrought British import . . . That Gardam is a virtuoso of structure creeps up on you until you begin to glimpse the outlines of the multiple subplots converging with the satisfying click that reminds you that you’re in the hands of a master.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Hugely funny and deeply moving.”—The Atlantic

“Pure pleasure.”—Anita Brookner, author of The Debut

“An endearing story. Gardam’s feisty characters deliver a tale that crackles with charm and energy.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A “poignant [and] powerful” novel about a 1920s Midwestern community in the aftermath of a devastating tornado (The New Yorker).

In March 1925, the worst tornado in the nation’s history will descend without warning on the small town of Marah, Illinois. By nightfall, hundreds will be homeless and hundreds more will lie in the streets, dead or grievously injured. Only one man, Paul Graves, will still have everything he started the day with—his family, his home, and his business, all miraculously intact.
This “absolutely gorgeous” novel follows Paul Graves and his young family in the year after the storm as they struggle to comprehend their own fate and that of their devastated town (The New York Times). They watch helplessly as Marah tries to resurrect itself from the ruins and as their friends and neighbors begin to wonder how one family, and only one, could be exempt from terrible misfortune. As the town begins to recover, the family miscalculates the growing resentment and hostility around them with tragic results, in an “extraordinarily moving” portrayal of survivor’s guilt and the frenzy of bereavement following a disaster (Financial Times).

“All the big themes are here—chance, fate, loyalty, revenge, guilt, jealousy . . . Inspired by actual events surrounding the 1925 Tri-State tornado, the worst in U.S. history, Southwood’s poignantly penetrating examination of the psychic cost of survival is breathtaking in its depth of understanding.”—Booklist (starred review)

“What’s most exciting about Southwood’s debut is her prose, which is reminiscent of Willa Cather’s in its ability to condense the large, ineffable melancholy of the plains into razor-sharp images.”—The Daily Beast

Inspired by the true story of a female spy, this is “an infectious page-turner, as crafty and nuanced and impassioned as any classic thriller” (The National).

Inspired by the true story of Melita Norwood, unmasked as the KGB’s longest-serving British spy in 1999, at age eighty-seven, Red Joan centers on the deeply conflicted life of a young physicist during the Second World War.Talented and impressionable, Cambridge undergraduate Joan Stanley befriends the worldly Sonya, whose daring history is at odds with Joan’s provincial upbringing. Joan also feels a growing attraction toward Leo, Sonya’s mysterious and charismatic cousin. Sonya and Leo, known communist sympathizers with ties to Russia and Germany, interpret wartime loyalty in ways Joan can only begin to fathom.As nations throughout the continent fall to fascism, Joan is enlisted into an urgent project that will change the course of the war—and the world—forever. Risking both career and conscience, leaking information to the Soviets while struggling to maintain her own semblance of morality, Joan is caught at a crossroads in which all paths lead to the same endgame: the deployment of the atomic bomb.Life during wartime, however, is often ambiguous, and when—decades later—MI5 agents appear at her doorstep, Joan must reaffirm the cost of the choices she made and face the cold truth: our deepest secrets have a way of dragging down those we love most.
The basis of the film starring Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson, this is “a brilliant spy novel, with [a] deft, involving plot . . . Tense, beautifully pitched, and very moving” (Marie Claire).

This Strega Prize winner “ticks all the boxes of a thriller while also being a masterfully written, baroque, many-faceted depiction of modern Italy” (The Spectator).

Bari, southern Italy: On a stifling summer night, on the outskirts of town, a young woman named Clara, daughter of the region’s most prominent family of real estate developers, stumbles naked, dazed, and bloodied down a major highway. Her death will be deemed a suicide. Her estranged half-brother, however, cannot free himself from her memory or the questions surrounding her death, and the more he learns about Clara’s life, the more he reveals the moral decay at the core of his family’s ascent to social prominence.
Winner of the 2015 Strega Prize, Italy’s preeminent prize for fiction, Ferocity is at once an intimate family saga, a cinematic portrait of the moral and political corruption of an entire society, and a “gripping” tale of suspense (The Irish Times).

“Biting social commentary as well as edge-of-seat reading.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Allows the mystery to slowly and captivatingly resolve while offering a layered portrait of contemporary Italian life and the abuses of power that money can excuse.”—Publishers Weekly

“Complex, darkly absorbing and mysterious literary fiction.”—Booklist

A novel of two expeditions, a century apart, that “conjures the Antarctic convincingly . . . in its vastness and implacable indifference to human life” (The New York Times Book Review).

In 1913, three explorers—Dinners, Millet-Bass, and Napps—volunteer to leave their ship, the Kismet, and scout an uncharted and unknown island in the Antarctic, which Napps names “Everland.” While all three are enticed by the promise of adventure and reward, they are immortalized by the disastrous outcome of the expedition, their stories preserved for posterity.
In 2012, Brix, Jess, and Decker—three researchers with their own reasons for being so far from home—set out on a centenary field trip to survey the same island. Their equipment is more advanced than the previous group’s, and their purpose more scientific—but the weather of Everland remains an unpredictable and deadly force, and under the harsh ultraviolet light of a sun which doesn’t set, isolated from the world, they begin to echo the expedition of a hundred years ago.

“Nothing short of stunning: an adventure story, a psychological investigation of physical and mental breakdown, and a remarkable account of weather and endeavor.”—The Guardian

In this “promising literary debut,” three Japanese citizens and one American reporter rebuild their lives in the aftermath of Japan’s WWII surrender (The Independent).

Japan, 1945. The country has just surrendered to the Allied forces after suffering the devastation of nuclear warfare. Satsuko Takara and her teenage brother, Hiroshi, have lost both their parents, and each other, during the firestorm that devastated Tokyo five months before. Documenting the destruction of the war is Hal Lynch, a haunted US photojournalist, who stumbles upon a shocking story and is determined to bring it to light. And Osamu Maruki, a dissolute writer and once Satsuko’s lover, has returned from the South Pacific a broken and changed man.
The war-torn streets of Tokyo come alive in this dazzlingly observed debut novel as the lives of these former enemies come together. Fire Flowers powerfully portrays the shock, the struggles, and the difficult choices that arise from the destruction of war.

“An impressive and nuanced account of a dark moment in history.”—The Independent.

Join Andrea Marcolongo, renowned classicist and one of today’s most original thinkers on antiquity, for an inspiring journey as she learns to run—and to live—like a Greek.

Why do we run? To what end, all the effort and pain? Wherefore this love of muscle, speed, and sweat? The Greeks were the first to ask these questions, the first to suspend war, work, politics, to enjoy public celebrations of athletic prowess. They invented sport and they were also the first to understand how physical activity connected to our mental well-being.

After a lifetime spent with her head and heart in the books trying to think like a Greek, at a professional and personal crossroads, Andrea Marcolongo set out to learn how to run like a Greek. In doing so, she deepened her understanding of the ancient civilization she has spent decades studying and discovered more about herself than she could ever have dreamed.

In this spirited, generous, and engaging book, Marcolongo shares her erudition and her own journey to understanding that a healthy body is, in more ways than one might guess, a healthy mind.

Told as a series of reflections on her personal experiences, this is a bold manifesto by a brilliant young mind on our contemporary understanding of romantic love and how the contradictions of inherited traditions and technology affect the way we build relationships.

Born and raised in an Orthodox Jewish community in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tamara Tenenbaum approached the sexual and affective habits of the secular world like an anthropologist discovering the ways of life of an unknown civilization.

Drawing from philosophy and feminist militancy, from conversations with friends and colleagues, and from an attempt to turn her own body and experience into a laboratory for both individual and collective reflection, Tenenbaum explores the challenges that young people today face at the start of their adult lives.

Tenenbaum examines the multiple dimensions of affection, from the value of friendship to the culture of consent, passing through motherhood as a choice or an imperative, desired and abhorred singlehood, polyamory, open relationships, and the workings of dating apps. Timely and illuminating, The End of Love celebrates the creative destruction of romantic relationships as we know them, and advocates for the rise of a better, freer love.

From one of Italy’s most renowned philosophers and psychoanalysts, an urgent and stirring reflection on violence, morality, and our relationship with the Other

What lies at the foundation of human history and society? According to Massimo Recalcati, it is not love for one’s neighbor, as preached by Jesus in the Gospels, but the brutality, jealousy, and violence depicted in the story of Cain and Abel.

As timely as it is brilliant, this essay examines Cain’s murderous act through the lens of psychoanalysis, showing how delusions of self-sufficiency and individual perfection lie at the deepest roots of fear and violence in our societies.

True completeness can only be achieved through others—not despite them. This, argues Recalcati, is the lesson of Cain, one that resonates powerfully in our time.

“Recalcati explores the most fundamental of questions—for Cain, Abel, and every human being: can we believe in love?”—La Stampa

What if the rules of modern capitalism were written during the Third Reich?

Reinhard Höhn (1904-2000) was a commander of the SS, one of Nazi Germany’s most brilliant legal minds, and an archetype of the fervid technocrats and intellectuals that built the Third Reich. Following Germany’s defeat, after a few years in hiding, he emerged in the early 1950s as the founder and director of a renowned management school in Lower Saxony.

Höhn’s story wouldn’t be very different from that of many other prominent Nazis if not for the fact that a vast number of Germany’s postwar business leaders—more than 600,000 executives—were educated at his management school.

In this fascinating book, Johann Chapoutot, one of France’s most brilliant historians, traces the profound links between Nazism and the principles of modern corporate management, our definitions of success, and a concept of personal freedom that masks rigid hierarchical structures of power and control.

“One of the most gifted European historians of his generation.”—Timothy Snyder, New York Times best-selling author of On Tyranny

From the best-selling author of The Ingenious Language comes a meditation on rebuilding, recovery, and renewal that is also a fascinating portrait of antiquity’s most complex and surprisingly modern hero.

In times of peace and prosperity, one can turn to Homer to learn valuable life lessons, to experience the thrills and terrors of war, and to read about hair-raising adventures in distant lands. But when things do not go as planned, when we unexpectedly find ourselves at the center of an epoch-defining upheaval, then, writes Andrea Marcolongo, we must look to Virgil’s Aeneas for an example of adaptability and resilience.

In Marcolongo’s fresh, nuanced portrayal, Virgil’s Aeneas emerges as a multiform, deeply human hero, striking in his vulnerability and capacity for empathy. His journey of rebirth and rebuilding, from the ruins of Troy to the shores of Italy, teaches us that when all seems lost, with hope, perseverance, and a little bit of luck, we can seek and find new beginnings.

“Marcolongo is today’s Montaigne…There is wisdom and grace here to last the ages.”—André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name

From one of Italy’s most renowned historians of religion, an exciting new portrait of one of Christianity’s most complex—and most misunderstood—figures: Mary Magdalene

Jesus’ favorite and most devoted disciple? A prostitute shunned from her community? A symbol of female leadership and independence? Who really was Mary Magdalene, and how does her story fit within the history of Christianity, and that of female emancipation?

In this meticulously researched, highly engaging book, Adriana Valerio looks at history, art, and literature to show how centuries of misinterpretation and willful distortion—aimed at establishing and preserving gender hierarchies—have stripped this historical figure of her complexity and relevance.

By revealing both the benign and the pernicious misrepresentations of Mary Magdalene, this thought-provoking essay reaffirms the central role played by women in the origins of Christianity and their essential contribution to one of the founding experiences of Western thought and society.

Does the idea of progress still apply to our times? If so, what does progress really mean?

Today, many believe that progress is a word to be avoided, a relic from a past, the dangerous product of an era of intellectual naivety that would be best forgotten. Yet, the idea of progress is rooted in a human impulse that is both profound and essential, a way of interpreting history without which our ability to plan the future, our very identity would be at stake.

Written just before the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic—which is now putting its argument to the hardest of tests—this lucid essay explores how science and technology have been, and can still be, a powerful engine for human and humane advancement. 

A clear-eyed, timely investigation of the threat posed by Artificial Intelligence to individual freedom, social cohesion, and the democratic process—and a radical proposal on how to fight back.

In this sharp, urgent book, philosopher, psychoanalyst, and former resistance fighter Miguel Benasayag warns of the great danger posed by the growing role of big data and algorithms in deciding the contours of individual lives and the direction of the world. From mass surveillance to predictive law enforcement to data-driven social interactions, AI has already colonized most aspects of our lives and determines the decisions of companies, financial markets, and governments.

Structured as a conversation with anthropologist Régis Meyran, The Tyranny of Algorithms rejects the sterile dichotomy that sees the promise of a “transhuman” future placed in opposition to the desire for a return to a pre-digital past, and examines how societies might meet the unprecedented challenge posed by AI to personal freedom and democratic institutions.

The solution, argues Benasayag, doesn’t lie in the systemic rejection of advanced technologies and digital architectures but in the search for new forms of integration with machines that put human needs, bodies, and emotions at the center.

“Evocative . . . A paean to the life, cities and food of the Mediterranean . . . His essays . . . reveal a man of deep feeling and humanity” (The Guardian).

A short sublime book on the three things dearest to Jean-Claude Izzo’s heart: his native Marseilles, the sea in all its splendor, and Mediterranean noir—the literary genre his books helped to found. This collection of writings shows Izzo, author of the acclaimed Marseilles trilogy, at his most contemplative and insightful. His native city, with its food, its flavors, its passionate inhabitants, and its long, long history of commerce and conviviality, constitute the lifeblood that runs through all of Izzo’s work.
Reminiscent of Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi and the lyrical essays of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Albert Camus, as uplifting and touching as Daniel Klein’s Travels with Epicurus, this slender volume will appeal equally to gourmets who delight in the strong flavors of Mediterranean cuisine, to those travelling on the Riviera (or arm-chair travelers who wish they could), and, naturally, to aficionados of noir fiction.
Praise for Jean-Claude Izzo

“Mr. Izzo was a marvelous food writer . . . His books are filled with winning descriptions of Provencal meals run through with the flavors of north Africa, Italy, Greece.”—The New York Times

“Just as Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy made Los Angeles their very own, so Mr. Izzo has made Marseilles so much more than just another geographical setting.”—The Economist

“In Izzo’s books . . . Marseilles is a ‘ville selon nos coeur,’ a city in tune with our heart . . . A cosmopolitan, maritime city, greedy, sensual and warm.”—Slow Food

A history of Europe like you’ve never read before.

“For some time now, Europe seems to have forgotten it is the daughter of epics and utopia. It has been drained by its inability to remind its citizens of this. Too distant, disembodied, the concept often arouses nothing more than disillusioned boredom. And yet, the history of Europe is one of constant upheaval. So much fire and death; inventions and art, too. Literature, perhaps, can remind us of this: that the European history is one of muscle, vigour, passion, anger and joy. Words of literature, perhaps, can restore conviction and momentum, which make everything possible, to the heart of the story.”

From the industrial revolution through two world wars and to the birth of the European Union, Our Europe sets in free verse the story of 150 years of growth, confrontation, hope, defeat and passion. Our Europe is a heartfelt appeal to bring into being a Europe that celebrates difference, solidarity, and freedom.

Lire Magazine Best Travel Book

Take four friends, put them on two Ural motorcycles (complete with sidecars), send them off on a 2,500-mile odyssey retracing history’s most famous retreat, add what some might consider an excessive amount of Vodka, and you’ve got Sylvain Tesson’s Berezina, a riotous and erudite book that combines travel, history, comradery, and adventure.

The retreat of Napoleon’s Grande Armée from Russia culminated, after a humiliating loss, with the crossing of the River Berezina, a word that henceforth became synonymous with unmitigated disaster for the French and national pride for the Russians. Two hundred years after this battle, Sylvain Tesson and his friends retrace Napoleon’s retreat, along the way reflecting on the lessons of history, the meaning of defeat, and the realities of contemporary Europe. A great read for history buffs and for anyone who has ever dreamed of an adventure that is out of the ordinary.

Boitani’s presentation of the classics is as entertaining and unexpected as it is informative. He invites the reader to discover the timeless beauty and wisdom of ancient literature, highlighting its profound and surprising connections to the present.

With their emphasis on the mutability and fluidity of identity and matter, their examination of the power and position of women in society, and their enduring treatments of force and subjugation, fate and free will, the ethical life, hospitality, love, compassion, and mysticism, the classics play active roles in our lives and can help us refine our opinions and our values.

Ranging from Homer to Tacitus, with Thucydides, Aristotle Sophocles, Cicero, and many others in between, Boitani’s A New Sublime is a fresh, inspiring reminder of the enduring importance and beauty of the classics of the Western canon.

“A brilliant meditation on language and life.”—Bookriot

For word nerds, language loons, and grammar geeks, an impassioned and informative literary leap into the wonders of the Greek language. Here are nine ways Greek can transform your relationship to time and to those around you, nine reflections on the language of Sappho, Plato, and Thucydides, and its relevance to our lives today, nine chapters that will leave readers with a new passion for a very old language, nine epic reasons to love Greek.

The Ingenious Language is a love song dedicated to the language of history’s greatest poets, philosophers, adventurers, lovers, adulterers, and generals. Greek, as Marcolongo explains in her buoyant and entertaining prose, is unsurpassed in its beauty and expressivity, but it can also offer us new ways of seeing the world and our place in it. She takes readers on an astonishing journey, at the end of which, while it may still be Greek to you, you’ll have nine reasons to be glad it is.

No batteries or prior knowledge of Greek required!

In the fifteenth century, even before the city states of the Apennine Peninsula began to coalesce into what would become, several centuries later, a nation, “Italy” exerted enormous influence over all of Europe and throughout the Mediterranean. Its cultural, economic, and political dominance is utterly astonishing and unique in world history. Viewing the Italy—the many Italies—of that time through the lens of today allows us to gather a fragmented, multi-faceted and seemingly contradictory history into a single unifying narrative that speaks to our current reality as much as it does to a specific historical period. This is what the acclaimed French historian, Fernand Braudel, achieves here. He brings to life the two extraordinary centuries that span the Renaissance, Mannerism, and the Baroque and analyzes the complex interaction between art, science, politics and commerce during Italy’s extraordinary cultural flowering.

Michel de Montaigne embodies the Humanist ideal. Curious, measured, contemplative yet not unworldly, witty, free of prejudice, and urbane. But what does Montaigne have to tell us about how to think and live today? In forty short, erudite and lively chapters written over a single summer, Antoine Compagnon seeks answers to that question.

In A Summer with Montaigne, Compagnon invites his readers to join him as he strolls through Montaigne’s key contributions to our understanding of what is good and worthwhile in life. This engaging book, then, serves as both an introduction to Montaigne for readers unfamiliar with his work and a refresher for those who are already acquainted with his unique brilliance, vitality, and timeliness. Montaigne’s Essays deal with themes that remain relevant today, from the problems posed by religion, war, power and friendship to the absurdity of our fixations and peccadillos. As accompanies readers through the Essays, Compagnon never pontificates and is never austere, rather he approaches Montaigne with a sense of humor, admiration, and joy.

“Puts a new twist on the Kennedy assassination . . . [a] remarkable first novel . . . delights in sex, hypocrisy and political conspiracy” (The Washington Post).

If you took James Ellroy at his most imaginative and Oliver Stone at his most conspiratorial, and mixed them up in a supersized martini shaker, you would produce the vivid writing, explosive events, and irresistible entertainment of Fever City, a Shamus Award finalist.
The story kicks off in 1960 Los Angeles, with the daring kidnapping of the child of one of America’s richest men. It then darts back and forth between a private detective’s urgent search for the child, the saga of a notorious hit man in the days leading to JFK’s assassination, and the modern-day story of a skeptical journalist researching the still-active conspiracy theories of the 1950s and ’60s, with the aim of debunking them. Just as the detective discovers that the kidnapping is a crime much larger than he imagined, and the hit man finds himself caught in a web that is astonishingly complex, the journalist discovers—to his horror, dismay, and even his jeopardy—that the conspiracy theories might well be true.

“In this ambitious debut Baker gives us a bare-knuckle take on the president’s murder and adds two other plotlines, connecting them solidly with the equivalent of a jab-jab-cross combination.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Hits you like a cannonball . . . A turbo-charged, beautifully written noir, Fever City is one of those mind-blowingly ambitious debuts that only comes along once in a great while.”—Stav Sherez, author of Eleven Days

An aging singer abandons Italy for South America as he struggles with the loss of his stardom, in a Strega Prize–nominated novel by the famed filmmaker.

Born on the streets and born singing, Tony Pagoda has had his day. But what a day it was! He had fame, money, women, and talent. He spent his golden years entertaining a flourishing and garishly happy Italy. His success stretched over borders and across the seas. But somewhere things began to go awry, the public’s tastes in music first and foremost. His band is now a shadow of its former self and his life is fraught with mundane but infuriating complications. It’s time to make a clean break with the past.
Following a brief tour in Brazil, Tony decides to decamp and make a life for himself in South America. Here, his vision of the world, shaped by those years in which he hobnobbed with Sinatra and enjoyed the adoration of audiences the world over, is under assault. Now that he has abandoned music, the world strikes him as a barren place completely at odds with his understanding of it. Tony’s story is the story of a worldly yet strangely naive man forced to reconcile with life or lose himself entirely.

“Tony’s episodic account of his life is a nonstop onslaught of sex, profanity, high-rolling and low-dealing across decades. . . . A furious, ironic, idiosyncratic, unexpurgated torrent, capturing Italian modernity through the lens of a monstrous character.”—Kirkus Reviews

“The vignettes that showcase Tony’s moral ineptitude are decidedly entertaining.—Publishers Weekly

Third in “a superb historical series set in Fascist Italy . . . and featuring one of the most melancholy detectives in European noir crime fiction” (The New York Times Book Review).

Commissario Ricciardi has visions. He sees and hears the final seconds in the lives of victims of violent deaths. It is both a gift and a curse. It has helped him become one of the most acute and successful homicide detectives in the Naples police force. But the horror and suffering he has seen has hollowed him out emotionally. He drinks too much and sleeps too little. His love life is a shamble. Other than his loyal partner, Brigadier Maione, he has no friends.
Naples, 1931. Together with Brigadier Maione, Ricciardi is investigating the death of the beautiful and mysterious Duchess of Camparino, whose connections to privileged Neapolitan social circles and the local fascist elite make the case a powder keg waiting to explode. As Benito Mussolini’s state visit to Naples looms and authorities frantically seek to clean up the city’s image, Ricciardi will stop at nothing to find the duchess’s killer.

“Reading a novel by Maurizio de Giovanni is like stepping into a Vittorio De Sica movie. The sights and smells of Naples are pungently evoked.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Combines a rare setting for a whodunit, Fascist Italy, with a classic fair-play puzzle and a highly unusual lead . . . a lyrical and tantalizing opening . . . intriguing.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“In the popular field of historical noir featuring gloomy but brilliant detectives, de Giovanni’s series easily stands out as a success.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“A stupendous, thought-provoking, devilishly delicious novel that reads like Zen koan meets Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . . . Highly recommended” (Library Journal, starred review).

Everything Happens Today records a single day in the life of Wes, a seventeen-year-old who attends Manhattan’s elite Dalton School and lives in Greenwich Village in a dilapidated town house with his terminally ill mother, distant father, and beloved younger sister. In the course of one day everything will happen to Wes: he will lose his virginity to the wrong girl and break his own heart, try to meet a Monday morning deadline for a paper on War and Peace, and prepare an elaborate supper he hopes will reunite his family. Wes struggles through the day deep in thoughts of sex, love, Beatles lyrics, friendship, God, and French cuisine—a typical teenager with an atypical mind, a memorable young man who comes to the poignant understanding of how fragile but attainable personal happiness can be.

“A deeply compassionate novel by a very fine writer.” —Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland

Second in the acclaimed Carrigan and Miller series from the author of A Dark Redemption. “[A] superbly written, intelligent and captivating crime novel” (Crime Review).

It is eleven days before Christmas, and an early morning fire rages through a West London square, engulfing a convent tucked within a handsome residential neighborhood. Detectives Jack Carrigan and Geneva Miller arrive at the dreadful scene to find eleven dead bodies—but there were only ten nuns in residence. Despite the department’s top brass pressing for the case to be solved before the holidays, the detectives suspect more than mere arson. Why did the nuns make no move to escape the fire? Who is the eleventh victim? And where is the convent’s influential priest liaison to the church, the one man who can answer their questions?
Shortlisted for the coveted Old Peculier Novel of the Year award, Eleven Days, the new entry in Sherez’s acclaimed series which began with A Dark Redemption, follows Carrigan and Miller as they unravel an elaborate mystery that spans four decades and two continents. On their second case together, the partners, at once fresh and familiar, confront both their haunting pasts and the dangers that threaten to cut short their futures. As pressure intensifies to close the case, they struggle to solve a hidden history whose exposure threatens both the church and the political establishment.

“Sherez scores high marks for his writing and characterization. Carrigan and Miller are shaping up to be an attractive duo.”—The Times

“Engrossing . . . A surprising plot and well-developed characters led by Carrigan and Miller make for a highly satisfying mystery.”—Publishers Weekly

An unnamed author is consumed by a small-town conspiracy in this existential noir by the award-winning Turkish author of Like a Sword Wound.

Named one of Washington Post’s 50 Notable Books of 2017

In Endgame, award-winning author and Turkish political dissident Ahmet Altan has crafted an enigmatic literary noir exploring the ways corruption has overtaken contemporary Turkish life. With a dreamlike logic reminiscent of Paul Auster and Graham Greene, it tells the story of an unnamed man who arrives in a small town only to find himself involved in a mystery with existential implications (The Washington Post).
The protagonist, a womanizing writer who lived his entire life in the city, retires to a sunbaked Turkish village to enjoy the quiet. Instead, he encounters a world of suspicion, paranoia, and violence. The town’s mayor is both his only ally and his greatest nemesis; his lover shares an ambiguous past with the mayor; the locals seem hell-bent on turning him into a murderer; and, he is initiated into the town’s biggest secret only to discover this knowledge will become a weapon used against him. All the while, Altan’s appealingly untrustworthy narrator transports the reader into a world of lust, ambition, small-town politics, and death.

“Endgame is a mystery adventure of such intimately written humanity that it transcends genre, time, and place. If Steinbeck had written The Godfather it might have read like this.”—DBC Pierre, Man Booker Prize–winning author of Vernon God Little

From the award-winning author of Old Filth. “[A] wonderfully old-fashioned novel . . . This post-Victorian charmer is an engrossing delight” (People).

In 1904, six-year-old Polly Flint is sent by her sea captain father to live with her aunts in a house by the sea on England’s northeast coast. Orphaned shortly thereafter, Polly will spend the next eighty years stranded in this quiet corner of the world as the twentieth century rages in the background. Through it all, Polly returns again and again to the story of Robinson Crusoe, who, marooned like her, fends off the madness of isolation with imagination. In The Guardian’s series on writers and readers’ favorite comfort books, associate editor Claire Armitstead said of Crusoe’s Daughter, “This is the most bookish of books . . . Every time I return to it, I am comforted by its refusal to conform, its wonderful, boisterous bolshiness, and the intelligence with which it demonstrates that we are what we read.”

“Witty, subversive, moving.”—The Times (London)

“[A] richly textured novel . . . much occurs on the emotional landscape. We know Polly intimately, and she haunts our imaginations as surely as Crusoe haunts hers . . . a thought-provoking book.”—Library Journal

“[The] most seductively entertaining of British novelists.”—Kirkus Reviews

An Italian journalist gets wrapped up in the criminality and cultural controversies of modern Turin in this “very funny” satirical novel (The New York Times).

It’s October 2006. The northern Italian town of Turin has been rocked by a series of murders involving Albanians and Romanians, and journalist Enzo Laganà is determined to get to the bottom of the crime wave—even if he must invent a few sources to do so. But first he’s been conscripted to mediate the issue of a pig running loose in a mosque.Gino the pig belongs to Enzo’s Nigerian immigrant neighbor, Joseph. The Muslim community wants Gino killed, an animal rights group wants him saved, and Joseph is pleading his pig’s innocence. As Enzo navigates various calamities large and small, he scrambles to keep track of his lies even as he uncovers some uncomfortable truths about contemporary, multicultural Italy.

“This very funny novel examines a town’s heightened ignorance and hostility toward foreigners, and what it means to be a “true” Italian, even if the native in question is a small pig.”—The New York Times