One moment Conrad Schwartz was suffering from a severe hangover as he hiked through the mountains of present-day Poland, the next he was hurled back to the same country in the 13th century. He remembered from his history classes that in another ten years, Mongol hordes were scheduled to attack, pillage, burn and kill¾and Conrad was likely to suffer all of the above. So, he set out to turn Poland into a world power by introducing universal education, aircraft, radios, steamboats, and generally discourage Mongols or anybody else from messing with either Poland or Conrad. But things weren't going to be quite that simple. . . . The Mongols were not quite as awed by advanced technology as he had hoped.He was under observation by mysterious Time Lords who didn't approve of disruptions in the flow of historical time.Last, and anything but least, he had married the formidable Lady Francine, and there was absolutely nothing simple about that noble-born and tempestuous woman. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

The modern-day time-traveling hero, Conrad Stargard, returns to medieval times where Countess Francine, his wife, complicates Conrad's swashbuckling life

The rise and fall of media tycoon Conrad Black and his journalist wife, Barbara Amiel, is one of the great stories of the modern business world. In Outrageous Fortune, London-based journalist Tom Bower reveals how Conrad and Lady Black used other people's money to finance a billionaire's lifestyle, winning friends and influence in London and New York along the way. Their story of overweening ambition and greed is a modern-day classic of hubris. Born into considerable wealth in Canada, Conrad Black bought and sold (but never effectively managed) several businesses, from mining and tractors to broadcasting companies and newspapers. In 1985 Black's holding com-pany, Hollinger, bought the Telegraph Group, the British newspaper publishing conglomerate. In the years that followed, Black additionally became the proprietor of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post, and a host of other magazines and newspapers in the English-speaking world. In 1992 Conrad married Barbara Amiel, who later famously said, "I have an extravagance that knows no bounds." Besotted by his wife, he began living way beyond his means. Fabulous parties, jewelry, clothes, and multiple mansions followed, and by 2001 Black had renounced his Canadian citizenship—which he called "an impediment to my progress in another more amenable jurisdiction"—in order to become a life peer in the British House of Lords. But the scheming deceptive duo's lies came crashing down when, in November 2003, an American report accused Black of "outright fraud," "ethical corruption," and "corporate kleptocracy." Black was forced out as Hollinger's chief executive, and two years later he was charged with eight counts of fraud—allegations that he will vigorously deny at his trial in Chicago, beginning in March of 2007. Based on hundreds of interviews with bankers, politicians, journalists, mega-deal makers, and close friends of Conrad and Lady Black, Outrageous Fortune is packed with lively anecdotes and salacious gossip. It is a hugely enter-taining and engrossing account of gullibility in high places.

Accidentally plunged back in time to Poland in the year 1231, Conrad Schwartz is determined to build up the country before the Mongol invasion that will come ten years later

The rise and fall of media tycoon Conrad Black and his journalist wife, Barbara Amiel, is one of the great stories of the modern business world.