An American expatriate's quiet life in rural France is disturbed when he finds a body on his doorstep in this tale of intrigue, corruption and jealousy."Le Carre and Deighton fans will welcome New Yorker cartoonist Steiner's engaging . . .first novel." — Publishers WeeklyWhen political intrigue drove Louis Morgon from a successful career at the State Department, he moved...

A cross between The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and A Year in Provence , this ingenious thriller gets stunning raves from one and all:"A marvel." - Olen Steinhauer • "Riveting." - France Today • "Elements of Agatha Christie and Robert Ludlum." - Bookreporter.com • "'Superbe'." - Jim Fusilli • "Like a good Alan Furst or Graham Greene." - The Washingtonian • "Engaging." - Publishers WeeklyLe ...

"Literate crime thrillers don't get much better than this." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)From the critically acclaimed author of Le Crime, published in hardcover as A French Country Murder, comes this electrifying sequel featuring former CIA operative Louis Morgon and his partner-in-crime-solving, Jean Renard, the gendarme of their small French village.Louis Morgon is living a quiet life of good food, good wine, and good frie...

The Prague Linguistic Circle came into being on the afternoon of October 6, 1926, when five Czech and Russian linguists gathered to hear a lecture by a German colleague. From this international beginning, the interests of the group grew to first encompass language in all its functional heterogeneity and then finally all of culture, which the Circle conceived of as a structure of sign systems. Semiotics was thus the overarching discipline for the Prague School, serving to organize all pheno...

The War on Terror has serious consequences, even for Louis Morgon, even in his small, not quite forgotten French village. When he learns that a misguided CIA campaign has led to the arrest and extreme rendition of Zaharia, who has been like a son to him, Louis is determined to find a real terrorist to exchange for the boy. His body may be failing, but his mind is still nimble. It better be. He has to play a double game navigating the dangerous no-man's land between the CIA and Al Qaeda, tu...

"Literate crime thrillers don't get much better than this." —Publishers Weekly (starred) on L'AssassinPeter Steiner has thoroughly impressed sophisticated thriller mavens everywhere with his critically acclaimed novels featuring ex-CIA operative Louis Morgon. Now, in what is indubitably Steiner's finest book to date, Louis attempts to solve a mystery with roots going back as far as World War II.When Louis purchases a rundown house in Saint-Leon-sur-Dême, he ...

Russian Formalism, one of the twentieth century's most important movements in literary criticism, has received far less attention than most of its rivals. Examining Formalism in light of more recent developments in literary theory, Peter Steiner here offers the most comprehensive critique of Formalism to date. Steiner studies the work of the Formalists in terms of the major tropes that characterized their thought. He first considers those theorists who viewed a literary wo...

Commissario Alec Blume, on leave for health problems, fleeing his partner Caterina and their newborn daughter, retreats to a villa somewhere in central Italy, where he enrolls in a natural remedies class conducted by a young woman named Silvana.But rather than finding comfort, Blume becomes increasingly ill-and ill at ease-in his new environment, and immediately makes an enemy of Niki, Silvana's ambiguous fiancé. Then a Romanian girl who works in Niki's nightclub comes to Blume and...

Amid the aroma of the sea and the Galician pines, a young saxophonist is found dead in his swanky flat overlooking the beach. The murder seems to have taken place after a sexual encounter with a lover: there are two glasses filled with gin in the living room, and the dead man, Luis Reigosa, is tied by the wrists to the headboard of the bed. But the way he was killed makes it impossible to obtain any more clues about his activities that night: his stomach, groin and thighs are horribly burn...

Northern Italy, 1982: Inspector Piero Trotti is enjoying his breakfast at a café when gunmen drive up and shoot the man sitting at the next table. Was Trotti their intended target? He isn’t sure. The case falls under the jurisdiction of the local Carabinieri, but Trotti decides to make his own inquiries.The Puppeteer is the follow-up to CWA award-winner Timothy Williams’s dazzling crime fiction debut, Converging Parallels. This tautly written novel brings us to th...

Northern Italy, 1985: Commissario Piero Trotti is on the verge of retirement from the police force. He is 56 years old, and though he is widely respected for his integrity and work ethic, he is not widely liked. The junior detectives he works with transfer because he’s too hard on them; his fellow commissioner is trying to force him out. Even his family has walked out of his life: his adult daughter has moved to Bologna, and his wife has left him for New York. All signs are telling Trotti ...

A small-town kidnapping presents a major problem for Commissario Trotti—and draws us into CWA Award winner Timothy Williams' debut, set against the rich backdrop of a provincial Italian city.Northern Italy, 1978: Commissario Piero Trotti, trusted senior police investigator in an anonymous provincial city off the River Po, has two difficult cases to solve. A dismembered body has been found in the river, and it’s up to Trotti to figure out who the murder victim is. A...