Blog

The Trojan War: A Very Short History is an up to date (2013) summary of the evidence for a Trojan War by excellent scholar Eric Cline.

Tim Leach has taken the Greek legend of Croesus, the extravagantly rich king of Lydia whose river, the Pactolus, flowed with gold, and retold it in a smart, meaning-laden manner that I enjoyed. This is a book that pursues the big philosophical questions.

Susan Spann’s Claws of the Cat takes us to Japan during the period of samurais and limited contact with the West. Her two “sleuths” are a most unlikely pair. Hiro, a shinobi assassin (think ninjas for the most part), is living undercover as the protector of Father Mateo, a Jesuit priest who has come to Japan to make converts. From this intriguing partnership Spann spins a mystery that won’t let go of you.

Baltakmens has created an imaginary, Dickensian city with a dark prison looming on a hill at the top of this grim, fairy tale-like world.

Interview and book giveaway with MJ Rose, author of Seduction, a novel about Victor Hugo and the modern mythologist and perfumer Jac L’Etoile.

M.J. Rose’s Seduction moves between the haunted world of Victor Hugo in 1855 on the Isle of Jersey after the death of his daughter and the equally problematic life of Rose’s modern heroine, Jac L’Etoile, a mythologist and innately talented perfumer with a tragic past.

Latest in the Maggie Hope series, this WWII thriller takes Maggie behind enemy lines into Germany where her past and the Nazis both have it out for her.