A gripping story of greed, treachery and ruthless ambition. Few people have led such an extraordinary life as Whitaker Wright. Few have died in such sensational circumstances. Beginning his career as an impoverished preacher, Wright crossed the Atlantic to prospect for gold, surviving a Native American massacre before he made his fortune. Then the bubble burst. Leaving behind a string of angry investors, he fled to England to start again. Soon he was one of the world's richest men. At his 10,000-acre estate in Surrey, he employed an entourage of seventy-seven staff, moved a hill that blocked his view and built an underwater glass smoking room. On his vast steam yacht, he entertained the Prince of Wales, the Kaiser and half of Britain's aristocracy. His downfall was as dramatic as his ascent. On the last trading day of the nineteenth century, his financial empire – which he had propped up by cooking the books – went belly up. This time, the trail of furious investors stretched all the way to the Prime Minister. With the police in hot pursuit, Wright fled to New York, but his escape was short-lived. At the end of what the press dubbed 'the most dramatic trial of modern times' he was sentenced to seven years in jail. Minutes later, he sprang a last dreadful surprise... Other great swindlers have followed in Wright's footsteps, but none have surpassed him in daring and shamelessness. Drawing on family papers and archives from around the world, this compelling account of Wright's life reads like a thriller and offers an insight into the mind of the ultimate gambler and conman.

A New Yorker becomes ensnared by the eerie drama unfolding at a derelict New England family home in this charming mystery from the author of the Mrs. Pollifax novels. “Delightful . . . a suspenseful romp . . . highly recommended.”—Booklist At the request of his father, New York City novelist Andrew Thale tackles an odd assignment—to check out an old family property in Massachusetts, neglected since Aunt Harriet Thale’s death years ago. But far from being deserted, Thale’s Folly, as Andrew discovers, is fully inhabited—by a quartet of charming squatters, former “guests” of kindhearted Harriet. There is elegant Miss L’Hommedieu, Gussie the witch, Leo the bibliophile, and beautiful Tarragon, who is unlike any girl Andrew has ever met in Manhattan. Andrew is entranced by these unworldly creatures and their simple life. Yet all is not well in Thale’s Folly. A thief breaks into the farmhouse, an old friend of the “family” disappears, and Andrew and Tarragon are drawn into mysteries they cannot fathom. . . .

From Tim Weiner, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, an urgent and gripping account of the 75-year battle between the US and Russia that led to the election and impeachment of an American president With vivid storytelling and riveting insider accounts, Weiner traces the roots of political warfare—the conflict America and Russia have waged with espionage, sabotage, diplomacy and disinformation—from 1945 until 2020. America won the cold war, but Russia is winning today. Vladimir Putin helped to put his chosen candidate in the White House with a covert campaign that continues to this moment. Putin’s Russia has revived Soviet-era intelligence operations gaining ever more potent information from—and influence over—the American people and government. Yet the US has put little power into its defense. This has put American democracy in peril. Weiner takes us behind closed doors, illuminating Russian and American intelligence operations and their consequences. To get to the heart of what is at stake and find potential solutions, he examines long-running 20th-century CIA operations, the global political machinations of the Soviet KGB, the erosion of American political warfare after the cold war, and how 21st-century Russia has kept the cold war alive. The Folly and the Glory is an urgent call to our leaders and citizens to understand the nature of political warfare—and to change course before it’s too late.

When Emmy Hamilton's mother encourages her to buy the local book store, Folly's Finds, she hopes it will distract her daughter from the loss of her husband. But the seller has one condition: Emmy must allow Lulu, the late owner's difficult elderly sister, to continue working there. For the most part Emmy ignores Lulu, but a bundle of love letters she finds in a box help her better understand Lulu. As details of a possible murder and a mysterious disappearance during WWII are revealed, the two women discover that fate has brought them together.

An empirical investigation of financial crises during the last 800 years.

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Barbara W. Tuchman, author of the World War I masterpiece The Guns of August, grapples with her boldest subject: the pervasive presence, through the ages, of failure, mismanagement, and delusion in government. Drawing on a comprehensive array of examples, from Montezuma’s senseless surrender of his empire in 1520 to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Barbara W. Tuchman defines folly as the pursuit by government of policies contrary to their own interests, despite the availability of feasible alternatives. In brilliant detail, Tuchman illuminates four decisive turning points in history that illustrate the very heights of folly: the Trojan War, the breakup of the Holy See provoked by the Renaissance popes, the loss of the American colonies by Britain’s George III, and the United States’ own persistent mistakes in Vietnam. Throughout The March of Folly, Tuchman’s incomparable talent for animating the people, places, and events of history is on spectacular display. Praise for The March of Folly “A glittering narrative . . . a moral [book] on the crimes and follies of governments and the misfortunes the governed suffer in consequence.”—The New York Times Book Review “An admirable survey . . . I haven’t read a more relevant book in years.”—John Kenneth Galbraith, The Boston Sunday Globe “A superb chronicle . . . a masterly examination.”—Chicago Sun-Times