The “delightfully macabre” (The New York Times) true tale of a brilliant and eccentric surgeon…and his quest to transplant the human soul. In the early days of the Cold War, a spirit of desperate scientific rivalry birthed a different kind of space race: not the race to outer space that we all know, but a race to master the inner space of the human body. While surgeons on either side of the Iron Curtain competed to become the first to transplant organs like the kidney and heart, a young American neurosurgeon had an even more ambitious thought: Why not transplant the brain? Dr. Robert White was a friend to two popes and a founder of the Vatican’s Commission on Bioethics. He developed lifesaving neurosurgical techniques still used in hospitals today and was nominated for the Nobel Prize. But like Dr. Jekyll before him, Dr. White had another identity. In his lab, he was waging a battle against the limits of science and against mortality itself—working to perfect a surgery that would allow the soul to live on after the human body had died. This “fascinating” (The Wall Street Journal), “provocative” (The Washington Post) tale follows his decades-long quest into tangled matters of science, Cold War politics, and faith, revealing the complex (and often murky) ethics of experimentation and remarkable innovations that today save patients from certain death. It’s a “masterful” (Science) look at our greatest fears and our greatest hopes—and the long, strange journey from science fiction to science fact.

Abandoned as a child and raised by the Church, young Sebastian works tirelessly in his pursuit of priesthood. But when a shadowy hooded figure passes him a scroll, his careful plans face a turning point. It appears his name has drawn the attention of the Inquisition and his attendance is commanded at once-for retribution, information, or something else, he does not know.Father Heinrich Institoris the Grand Inquisitor is lauded as a visionary man, driven by a burning desire to cleanse the world of Eve's original sin by eradicating witches. As Inquisition courts bloom across Europe, he vows to leave no stone unturned, no hovel unexamined, and no woman alive, in his search for justice.As the Inquisitor's violent mission unfolds, Sebastian embarks on a quest through dank crypts, crumbling abbeys, and the darkest depravities known to man. Torn between duty and love when he encounters the beautiful pagan Brigantia, he fights to uncover the truth: of his past abandonment, the power of the occult, and just how far he'll go to protect the Church he loves. A Church that is harboring deadly secrets.Inspired by true historical figures and events in the 15th Century, The Pope's Butcher is not only a hair-raising work of suspense and espionage, but an astonishing account of religion and the occult in the Middle Ages.With an intriguing writing tone and a talent to create suspense and mystery from true events, Joseph C. Gioconda delivers a shocking story of serial murders within the Catholic Church. In writing his latest book, he has interviewed leading scholars in the U.S. and Europe and hired professional researchers to comb through newly discovered source material from Germany and Italy.

The mesmerizing biography of a brilliant and eccentric surgeon and his quest to transplant the human soul. In the early days of the Cold War, a spirit of desperate scientific rivalry birthed a different kind of space race: not the race to outer space that we all know, but a race to master the inner space of the human body. While surgeons on either side of the Iron Curtain competed to become the first to transplant organs like the kidney and heart, a young American neurosurgeon had an even more ambitious thought: Why not transplant the brain? Dr. Robert White was a friend to two popes and a founder of the Vatican’s Commission on Bioethics. He developed lifesaving neurosurgical techniques still used in hospitals today and was nominated for the Nobel Prize. But like Dr. Jekyll before him, Dr. White had another identity. In his lab, he was waging a battle against the limits of science, and against mortality itself—working to perfect a surgery that would allow the soul to live on after the human body had died. Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher follows his decades-long quest into tangled matters of science, global politics, and faith, revealing the complex (and often murky) ethics of experimentation and remarkable innovations that today save patients from certain death. It’s an enthralling tale that offers a window into our greatest fears and our greatest hopes—and the long, strange journey from science fiction to science fact.

One of the most dramatic explorations of a German town in the grip of anti-Semitic passion ever written. In 1900, in a small Prussian town, a young boy was found murdered, his body dismembered, the blood drained from his limbs. The Christians of the town quickly rose up in violent riots to accuse the Jews of ritual murder—the infamous blood-libel charge that has haunted Jews for centuries. In an absorbing narrative, Helmut Walser Smith reconstructs the murder and the ensuing storm of anti-Semitism that engulfed this otherwise peaceful town. Offering an instructive examination of hatred, bigotry, and mass hysteria, The Butcher's Tale is a modern parable that will be a classic for years to come. Winner of the Fraenkel Award and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2002.

Saint Benedict's life is shrouded in mystery. Disturbed by the immorality of urban life in Rome around AD 500, he left the city to become a hermit. Disciples later joined him, and within a few decades the hermit became an abbot, and his great rule has guided Western monasticism ever since. Known to history primarily through Gregory the Great's Dialogues, written a century after Benedict's death, this great medieval figure is now made known to us by Carmen Avecedo Butcher. She explores all aspects of his unusual life, illuminating important episodes in the foundation of Western monasticism at the end of the Roman empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Winner of 2020 W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction Military Writers Society of America Award Winner: Gold Medal in Historical Fiction Winner of the 2021 William E. Colby Award Sometimes it takes years for a combat vet to understand what war did to him when he was nineteen. With the perception and reflection of a man on the cusp of retirement from a career teaching high school kids, Marty McClure recalls the relentless intensity of prolonged combat as a teenaged Marine machine gunner facing booby traps and battles in a war with few boundaries. Family and friends know Marty as a kind, peaceful man. They aren‘t aware that when he was young, he plumbed the depths of terror, hatred, and despair with no assurance he‘d ever surface again. Now he needs to reveal what happened in Vietnam and how, with the help of Patti, his wife, Corrie Corrigan, a disabled vet, and Doc Matheson, a corpsman turned trauma surgeon, he works to become a good husband, father, and teacher while he fights to bury the war. Only if he accepts help from his wife and his friends will he find real peace.