David Keck captivated readers with In the Eye of Heaven. Now, he continues the gripping story of Durand Col, a man at the heart of a nation divided. Fighting under the banner of Lord Lamoric, Durand and his companions thwarted a mad duke’s ambition and saved the crown. They have spent the winter counting their last pennies in their master’s gloomy hall and wondering what the coming season will bring. One thing seems certain: the peace they forged cannot hold. Too many barons have plotted against the king, too many strongrooms are empty, and no one truly believes that a simple vote will long deter the brooding Duke of Yrlac. With the advent of spring, the king rails against traitors and flings mad edicts across the land. There is open rebellion in the North. And, the Duke of Yrlac steps over the border of Lamoric’s homeland. Even as Durand fights at Lamoric’s side, his loyalties are increasingly torn. As a knight of Lamoric’s household, he cannot stray far from his master’s wife—the one woman he can neither have nor forget—while siege and sorcery conspire to bring him closer to treason. Can his loyalties survive his divided heart? Can the land of his birth survive the forces that tear it asunder? Can love and loyalty endure in a time of treason?

Illustrations on both front and back end-papers.

In 1728 a stranger handed a letter to Governor Yue calling on him to lead a rebellion against the Manchu rulers of China. Feigning agreement, he learnt the details of the plot and immediately informed the Emperor, Yongzheng. The ringleaders were captured with ease, forced to recant and, to the confusion and outrage of the public, spared. Drawing on an enormous wealth of documentary evidence - over a hundred and fifty secret documents between the Emperor and his agents are stored in Chinese archives - Jonathan Spence has recreated this revolt of the scholars in fascinating and chilling detail. It is a story of unwordly dreams of a better world and the facts of bureaucratic power, of the mind of an Emperor and of the uses of his mercy.

Hédi Kaddour’s poetry arises from observation, from situations both ordinary and emblematic—of contemporary life, of human stubbornness, human invention, or human cruelty. With Treason, the award-winning poet and translator Marilyn Hacker presents an English-speaking audience with the first selected volume of his work. The poetries of several languages and literary traditions are lively and constant presences in the work of Hédi Kaddour, a Parisian as well as a Germanist and an Arabist. A walker’s, a watcher’s, and a listener’s poems, his sonnet-shaped vignettes often include a line or two of dialogue that turns his observations and each poem itself into a kind of miniature theater piece. Favoring compact, classical models over long verse forms, Kaddour questions the structures of syntax and the limits of poetic form, combining elements of both international modernism and postmodernism with great sophistication. Capturing Kaddour’s full range of diction, as well as his speed, momentum, and tone, Marilyn Hacker’s translations brilliantly bring these poems alive.

Drawing on a wealth of previously unexamined material, this staggering account sheds new light on the Allies’ responsibility for a landmark agreement that had dire consequences. On returning from Germany on September 30, 1938, after signing an agreement with Hitler on the carve-up of Czechoslovakia, Neville Chamberlain addressed the British crowds: “My good friends…I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.” Winston Churchill rejoined: “You have chosen dishonor and you will have war.” P. E. Caquet’s history of the events leading to the Munich Agreement and its aftermath is told for the first time from the point of view of the peoples of Czechoslovakia. Basing his work on previously unexamined sources, including press, memoirs, private journals, army plans, cabinet records, and radio, Caquet presents one of the most shameful episodes in modern European history. Among his most explosive revelations is the strength of the French and Czechoslovak forces before Munich; Germany’s dominance turns out to have been an illusion. The case for appeasement never existed. The result is a nail-biting story of diplomatic intrigue, perhaps the nearest thing to a morality play that history ever furnishes. The Czechoslovak authorities were Cassandras in their own country, the only ones who could see Hitler’s threat for what it was, and appeasement as the disaster it proved to be. In Caquet’s devastating account, their doomed struggle against extinction and the complacency of their notional allies finally gets the memorial it deserves.

With Malice toward Some: Treason and Loyalty in the Civil War Era

Red Sparrow is now a major motion picture starring Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton! The thrilling sequel to Red Sparrow—CIA insider Jason Matthews’s compulsively readable New York Times bestseller and Edgar Award winner—featuring Russian spy Dominika Egorova and CIA agent Nate Nash “shimmers with authenticity. The villains are richly drawn...the scenes of them on the job are beyond chilling” (The New York Times Book Review). Captain Dominika Egorova of the Russian Intelligence Service despises the oligarchs, crooks, and thugs of Putin’s Russia—but what no one knows is that she is also working for the CIA. Her “sparrow” training in the art of sexual espionage further complicates the mortal risks she must take, as does her love for her handler Nate Nash—a shared lust that is as dangerous as treason. As Dominika expertly dodges exposure, she deals with a murderously psychotic boss, survives an Iranian assassination attempt and attempts to rescue an arrested double agent—and thwart Putin’s threatening flirtations. A grand, wildly entertaining ride through the steel-trap mind of a CIA insider, Palace of Treason is a story “as suspenseful and cinematic as the best spy movies” (The Philadelphia Inquirer)—one that feels fresh and so possible, in fact, that it’s doubtful this novel can ever be published in Russia.