International Bestseller: "Meticulously documented . . . Frattini gives us an exclusive look at the hidden face of the papacy—revelations that send a chill up the spine." — Le MondeFor five centuries, the Vatican—the oldest organization in the world, maker of kings and shaper of history—has used a secret spy service, called the Holy Alliance, or later, the Entity, to carry out its will. Forty popes have relied on it to carry out their policies. They have pl...

Divided into themed sections, linked together with a chronology of the most important events in the life of the Vatican, Secrets of the Vatican includes:THE HISTORY OF THE VATICANThe rise of the Catholic church, from its inauspicious beginnings as a persecuted cult in Rome to its establishment as the world's largest organized religionHOUSES OF THE HOLYA look at the vast wealth of art, sculpture and literature collected in the Vatican Museums and some of the sc...

From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history The Dead Hand comes the riveting story of a spy who cracked open the Soviet military research establishment and a penetrating portrait of the CIA’s Moscow station, an outpost of daring espionage in the last years of the Cold WarWhile driving out of the American embassy in Moscow on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA’s Moscow station heard a knock on his car window. A man on the curb ...

The Fifth-Century Political Battles That Forever Changed the ChurchIn this fascinating account of the surprisingly violent fifth-century church, PhilipJenkins describes how political maneuvers by a handful of powerful charactersshaped Christian doctrine. Were it not for these battles, today's church could beteaching something very different about the nature of Jesus, and the papacy as weknow it would never have come into existence. Jesus Wars reveals the profoundimplicatio...

Presents conclusive evidence that ancient Egypt was originally the remnant of an earlier, highly sophisticated civilization• Supports earlier speculations based on myth and esoteric sources with scientific proof from the fields of genetics, engineering, and geology• Provides further proof of the connection between the Mayans and ancient Egyptians• Links the mystery of Cro-Magnon man to the rise and fall of this ancient civilizationIn the late nineteenth cent...

From the author of New York Times bestseller The Tourist...It's August, 1948, three years after the Russians "liberated" the nation from German Occupation. But the Red Army still patrols the capital's rubble-strewn streets, and the ideals of the Revolution are but memories. Twenty-two-year-old Detective Emil Brod finally gets his chance to serve his country, investigating murder for the People's Militia.The first victim is a state songwriter, but the facts...

**Winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize"A superb and immensely important book."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington PostThe Second World War might have officially ended in May 1945, but in reality it rumbled on for another ten years...**The end of World War II in Europe is remembered as a time when cheering crowds filled the streets, but the reality was quite different. Across Europe, landscapes had been ravaged, entire cities razed, and more than thirty mil...

A thrilling literary mystery costarring Jane Austen from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Bookman’s Tale.Book lover and Austen enthusiast Sophie Collingwood has recently taken a job at an antiquarian bookshop in London when two different customers request a copy of the same obscure book: the second edition of A Little Book of Allegories by Richard Mansfield. Their queries draw Sophie into a mystery that will cast doubt on the ...

The wickedly candid New York Times bestesller that Ava Gardner dared not publish during her lifetime—“the heartbreaking memoir of the ultimate heartbreaker” (Philadelphia Inquirer).Ava Gardner was one of Hollywood’s biggest and brightest stars during the 1940s and 1950s, an Oscar Award–nominated leading lady who costarred with Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, and Humphrey Bogart, among others. But this riveting account of her storied life, including h...

In the secret world of spies and covert operations, no other intelligence service continues to be as surrounded by myth and mystery as the Mossad. Gordon Thomas reveals that all too often the truth exceeds all the fantasies about the Mossad. Revised and updated for 2015, this new edition includes:- Mossad's secret meeting in 2013 with Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief to plan for Israel to use Saudi to attack Iran should the Geneva discussion fail to be honored by Iran.- The ...

In the deep of winter 1893, a briskly practical physician named Mrs. Mellon arrives at a New York tenement and takes up her duty to care for the aged, the indigent and the dying. Her patient in the garret, she decides, fits all three categories nicely -- that is, before she realizes she is in the presence of a most unusual lost soul: the charismatic Maggie Fox.Part mystery, part ghost story, part riveting historical fiction, The Dark ushers the reader into the shadowy bord...

“One part The Da Vinci Code, one part The Name of the Rose and one part A Separate Peace . . . a smart, swift, multitextured tale that both entertains and informs.”—San Francisco ChronicleNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERPrinceton. Good Friday, 1999. On the eve of graduation, two friends are a hairsbreadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a Renaissance text that has b...