Spain, 1906. The Duke de Richleau has not yet succeeded his father, and is still the Count de Quesnoy. Anarchism permeates every country in Europe, and not a night passes without groups of fanatics meeting in cellars to plan attempts with knives, pistols or bombs against the representatives of law and order. A bomb outrage gives de Quesnoy ample cause to vow vengeance on the assassins. His attempt to penetrate anarchist circles in Barcelona nearly costs him his life. In San Sebastian, Granada and Cadiz he hunts and is hunted by them in a ruthless vendetta. A rich novel packed with true history, subtle intrigue, sudden violence, terrorism, blackmail and suspense, alongside the bitter-sweet romance between gallant young de Quesnoy and the beautiful Condesa Gulia.

This is a story of wars, revolutions, exiles and restorations; a parade of kings, queens, regents and pretenders. Its central theme is the fight for the throne of Spain between the Bourbon and Carlist pretenders, a fight which started in 1833. Both branches of the family abound in colourful characters: the shrewd Maria Cristina, the masculine Infanta Carlota, the sensuous Isabel II, the effete King Francisco, the suave Duke de Montpensier, the showy Carlos VII, the licentious Alfonso XII. The drama is acted out in many countries in the court living in formal splendour in the Palacio Real in Madrid, Don Juan dying incognito in a house in Brighton, Isabel living out her voluptuous days in Paris, Carlos VII scheming in his palazzo on the Grand Canal, the future Alfonso XII at Sandhurst, the Infanta Eulalia in Chicago, the son of Alfonso XIII dying in a car accident in the U.S.A. When this book was first published in 1966, the spirit of Carlism was still very much alive; the Carlists had thrown their weight behind Franco in the Spanish Civil War, and the recent marriage of the Carlist pretender to Princess Irene of Holland had spotlighted the old feud.

Winner of the Howard R. Marraro Prize for Italian History from the American Historical Association Nobles were slaughtered and their castles looted or destroyed, bodies were dismembered and corpses fed to animals—the Udine carnival massacre of 1511 was the most extensive and damaging popular revolt in Renaissance Italy (and the basis for the story of Romeo and Juliet). Mad Blood Stirring is a gripping account and analysis of this event, as well as the social structures and historical conflicts preceding it and the subtle shifts in the mentality of revenge it introduced. This new reader's edition offers students and general readers an abridged version of this classic work which shifts the focus from specialized scholarly analysis to the book's main theme: the role of vendetta in city and family politics. Uncovering the many connections between the carnival motifs, hunting practices, and vendetta rituals, Muir finds that the Udine massacre occurred because, at that point in Renaissance history, violent revenge and allegiance to factions provided the best alternative to failed political institutions. But the carnival massacre also marked a crossroads: the old mentality of vendetta was soon supplanted by the emerging sense that the direct expression of anger should be suppressed—to be replaced by duels.

Kathleen "Kat" Polinski--burglar, hacker, undercover agent--returns home from a deadly mission at the Kazakh Embassy in Washington, DC, to find a cryptic message from her sister. Soon after, she learns that her sister Suzy has been murdered--shot with a highpowered rifle in a desolate spot 100 miles outside of London. What was Suzy doing there? Did it have anything to do with the controversial Project Peace? An international security agreement, Project Peace allows constant surveillance and loss of individual freedom in the name of stability and order. Kat must use every weapon at her disposal, from martial arts to computer hacking, to bring her sister's killer to justice. But in her search for answers, she discovers an increasingly plausible threat that could destroy the world as we know it....

Eleven Italian Americans were lynched in New Orleans on March 14, 1891, by a mob of twenty thousand people, gathered together by the political, business, and labor elites a day after a jury acquitted six Italian Americans of the murder of the city's police chief. No one was charged or punished for this injustice. The lynching caused a disconnect between the president and congress of the United States, and Washington and Rome. The crisis was used by nativists to restrict immigration and to repress immigrant populations and also introduced a new word to the American vocabulary: mafia.

Blockbuster bestselling author Iris Johansen brings back fan favorite Catherine Ling—and introduces readers to a whole new world of danger, intrigue, and red-hot passion with Vendetta. With his dying breath, Carl Venable, head of the CIA task force on terrorism and Jude Brandon’s final link to terrorist ringleader Max Huber, gives Brandon a mandate: keep his daughter, Rachel, safe at any cost. But Rachel Venable has a shocking, twisted past of her own, one that comes rushing back after her medical clinic in Guyana is attacked by Huber—the same man who murdered her father and kept her imprisoned for months. Brandon and Catherine Ling, Rachel’s longtime ally and fierce protector, are determined to keep Rachel out of danger, but she knows that it’s impossible to stay hidden when Max Huber wants you dead. As Rachel and Brandon race against the clock to bring Huber down before he can orchestrate a disaster that will lay waste to half the country, they also fight a growing attraction to each other – an attraction that could prove just as dangerous as Huber himself. In this gripping, fast-paced novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen, one thing is clear: everyone has a vendetta, and no one will rest until they get their revenge.