From Lynda La Plante, one of the world’s greatest crime writers, Royal Heist is a big, dashing novel of deception, passion, and international suspense, in which a man with a dangerous double life masterminds the greatest robbery of all time. With a beautiful family and a magnificent fortune, Edward de Jersey is making news with his prized racehorse Royal Flush. But while de Jersey socializes with the cream of English society, he keeps to himself the details of his background and how he acquired his wealth. The son of an East End bookie, de Jersey reinvented himself as an aristocrat after pulling off some of England’s most notorious heists. He has no intention of ever going back to crime . . . until his financial adviser loses his entire fortune in a disastrous investment and de Jersey decides to retrieve it the old-fashioned way: by stealing it. From Monaco to the Hamptons, from London to the shadowy back alleys of cyberspace, de Jersey goes into action, using guile, force, and the latest technology to put together the perfect plan. Drawing on the expertise of a computer hacker with a passion for Elvis, the inside knowledge of a dying aristocrat, and the skill of a professional impersonator, de Jersey is ready to commit his greatest and final crime. He’s going to steal the crown jewels from under the nose of the royals themselves. Now, as Royal Flush prepares for a spectacular run at the Derby, de Jersey faces his moment of truth: How much is he willing to risk to win the sport’s most coveted prize? And just how far will he go to get away with the perfect crime? A novel that builds to an amazing crescendo of suspense, Royal Heist is a glamorous and gritty tale of men and women bound together by love, greed, trust, and mistrust. With all the pounding excitement of a high-stakes horse race, this is fiction that takes hold, doesn’t let go, and dares us to keep guessing until the very end.

A Royal Wedding—and a Shocking Crime After rescuing jewelry designer Ruby Tate from an attacker, Lydian royal guard Galen Harris suspects the crime wasn't a random incident. Jewelry thieves have set their sights on Lydia's royal family, and they won't let anyone stand in their way—including Ruby, who's in town to help the princess with her wedding jewels. The closer Ruby and Galen get to uncovering the mystery, the harder it is to deny their feelings. But with a deadly gang of criminals after them, will they live to see their own happily ever after?

As heard on NPR's This American Life “Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air “One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever.” —Christian Science Monitor A rollicking true-crime adventure and a captivating journey into an underground world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief. On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness. Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.

'The Colonel' was rumoured to have masterminded the most successful robberies of the past decade. Now he's back playing his old game. The immensely wealthy owner of a successful racing yard, Edward de Jersey, has set high hopes on a Derby win from his magnificent colt, Royal Flush. But de Jersey's luck runs out when his adviser invests his fortune in a fledgling Internet company that crashes, leaving him with mounting debts. Afraid he will loose everything, de Jersey resurrects his criminal past and attempts to pull off the most audacious heist in history - the target, the Koh-i-noor diamond, Mountain of Light. Weighing over a hundred carats, the jewel has an estimated value of more than a billion pounds… **Lynda La Plante's Widows is now a major motion picture**

In the Kingdom of Countavia, fairytales come true thanks to widower and matchmaker, King Marcus the Fifth. But for every happy ending this king plays a hand in, a centuries-old international mystery grows deeper, leaving love and danger forever intertwined on this enchanted isle. The Royal Affair is book one in the Royals of Countavia series. All princes are toads... Anti-monarchist Willow Forbes is determined to depose the king responsible for her father's death. But when a royal invitation lands her at the seaside cottage of the dashing Jaxon Baine, Duke of Summerton, the sexy billionaire royal disrupts Willow's world. Until you kiss the right one... Jaxon Baine, Duke of Summerton, has spent a grueling political term fighting to preserve the monarchy. Now he's looking forward to a peaceful season at Summerton Castle, the one place his painful past can be forgotten. But when his uncle, the king, pairs him up on a covert assignment with Willow Forbes—Royal Enemy Number One—Jaxon's summer heats up. Can two hearts from opposite sides of life find love? Or will the dangers and secrets of the past destroy them both?

In another "suspenseful mystery romp with art appreciation" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Art and Camille head to London to find her estranged father, and soon find themselves embroiled in a heist involving a long-dead monarch. Packed with fascinating facts about real places and pieces of art, this fast-paced thriller is perfect for fans of the Spy School and Mr. Limoncello's Library series and Dan Brown. No matter how dangerous his adventures have been, Art has always been able to count on his best friend, Camille. Now that Camille is meeting her estranged father, Art wants to be there for her--which means going to London. But Camille's history professor father, renowned for expertise in British legend, is missing. When they visit his apartment, Art and Camille find a long-missing object that suggests the professor could be in trouble and solving a mystery related to London's history. Follow Art and Camille as they visit the Tower of London, National Portrait Gallery, and ride the "tube" in hopes of uncovering the truth before it's too late.

How Lenin’s regime turned Russia’s priceless cultural patrimony into armored cars, trains, planes, and machine guns Historians have never resolved a central mystery of the Russian Revolution: How did the Bolsheviks, despite facing a world of enemies and leaving nothing but economic ruin in their path, manage to stay in power through five long years of civil war? In this penetrating book, Sean McMeekin draws on previously undiscovered materials from the Soviet Ministry of Finance and other European and American archives to expose some of the darkest secrets of Russia’s early days of communism. Building on one archival revelation after another, the author reveals how the Bolsheviks financed their aggression through astonishingly extensive thievery. Their looting included everything from the cash savings of private citizens to gold, silver, diamonds, jewelry, icons, antiques, and artwork. By tracking illicit Soviet financial transactions across Europe, McMeekin shows how Lenin’s regime accomplished history’s greatest heist between 1917 and 1922 and turned centuries of accumulated wealth into the sinews of class war. McMeekin also names names, introducing for the first time the compliant bankers, lawyers, and middlemen who, for a price, helped the Bolsheviks launder their loot, impoverish Russia, and impose their brutal will on millions.