“By far the best” in the New York Times–bestselling, Macallan Silver Dagger–winning series featuring Venetian detective Commissario Brunetti (Evening Standard). In this vivid and atmospheric mystery, Commissario Brunetti is visited by a young bureaucrat investigating the lack of official approval for the construction of Brunetti’s apartment years before. What began as a red tape headache ends in murder when the bureaucrat is later found dead after a mysterious fall from a scaffold. Brunetti starts an investigation that will take him into the unfamiliar and dangerous areas of drug abuse and loan-sharking, and will reveal, once again, what a difference it makes in Venice to have friends in high places. “Beautifully written and immaculately plotted, Friends in High Places is further proof still that Leon can do no wrong.” —Scotsman “Carefully plotted and full of colorful as well as sinister characters, this is crime writing of the highest order: powerful, relevant and all too full of human failings.” —The Guardian “Leon tells the story as if she loves Venice as much as her detective does, warts and all. The plot and subplots unfold elegantly; beauty and the beast march hand in hand, and the result is rich entertainment.” —The Sunday Times (London) “Leon’s best so far . . . I don’t think I could really understand a crime fan who didn’t love Donna Leon.” —Scotland on Sunday “Leon is a skillful plotter . . . Brunetti is a nicely shaded creation, a moral man who is also all too human. Friends in High Places is a splendid read, clever and provoking.” —Observer (UK)

For more than forty years, Clark Clifford was Washington's consummate Democratic power broker - attorney and adviser to the nation's most influential leaders. His 1991 memoir, Counsel to the President, looked back on a remarkable career of public service. But the very year his autobiography was published, the Clifford legend began to crumble. Caught up in the scandal that destroyed the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the eighty-five-year-old Clifford was arrested on charges relating to his law firm's involvement with the outlaw bank. Though his case never went to trial, and his protege, Robert Altman, was found not guilty, Clifford's reputation was in ruins. How could such a man come to such an end? What happened? And why? In Friends in High Places, a noted investigative reporter and a chief investigator in the Senate inquiry on BCCI provide the answers. Drawing on original documents, more than a hundred interviews with Clifford's friends and adversaries, and fifty hours of interviews with Clifford himself, the authors reveal the drive and shrewdness that led Clifford to the pinnacle of power - and demonstrate convincingly that his involvement with BCCI was no aberration, but the bitter fruit of seeds planted at the beginning.

Before the nation came to know them as the President and First Lady, Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham were close friends of Webb Hubbell's. Now Hubbell offers insight into how he and the Clintons climbed the political ranks from Arkansas to the White House. Included in this book are intricate tales of Hubbell's support of Bill Clinton in his tensest moments; his friendship with Hillary Rodham Clinton; the tragic death of Vince Foster; details of involvement in Whitewater; an inside look at the Justice Department and partnership with Janet Reno; and insights into famous personalities such as Mac McLarty, Bernie Nussbaum, Bruce Lindsey, Mickey Kantor, and George Stephanopoulos. Hubbell's story is told from the perspective of one who personally knows the President and First Lady. Their friendship began when Hubbell and Hilary Rodham Clinton were partners at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm; and when Bill Clinton worked as Governor of Arkansas, Hubbell served with him as Mayor of Little Rock, and later as chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Hubbell joined the Clintons in the White House as associate attorney general, the third highest ranking member of the Justice Department. His political career ended, however, with the Whitewater scandal and incarceration in federal prison. Why Hubbell committed the crimes he assumes responsibility for are detailed; a conflicted soul struggling with the cynical maelstrom of power and politics. Hubbell comments on his resignation and prison sentence, and reflects on his old friends whom have since isolated him from the White House. The journey is Webb Hubbell's, yet his recounting resonates with the humanity in us all: the love he shares with his wife and family, the grief over losing friends to death or circumstances, and humility when faced with calamity. In the end Hubbell faces the truth with a steadfastness seldom seen in Washington.

In Friends in High Places, historical theologian Tom Shepherd takes you journeying through time to meet your long-lost relatives of the Western religious heritage. Mystics like Pseudo-Dionysius, John Scotus Erigena, Meister Eckhart and the first Quaker, George Fox. Deep thinkers like Philo Judaeus, Origen of Alexandria and pagan martyr Hypatia. Sunny optimists like Pelagius, who lost his argument with St. Augustine over the goodness of humanity only after the fall of Rome rattled the ancient world and made positive thinking seem positively naïve. Shepherd introduces an impressive entourage of mystics and metaphysical thinkers--to include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mary Baker Eddy, Emma Curtis Hopkins, Paul Tillich, and Teilhard de Chardin--and gives the reader a taste of their writings. Just a sampler, not a full course meal. You'll find such delight in these brief profiles, you'll come away refreshed and ready to tackle life in the modern world.

“Riveting . . . exemplifies how business works by exploiting personal connections.”—Businessweek The Bechtel Group is a private company that shuns the limelight, yet it is one of the prime movers-and-shakers in the global economic arena. Founded by self-made millionaire Warren A. Bechtel as a risk-taking construction and engineering firm, the multibillion-dollar, multinational conglomerate is responsible for constructing the Hoover Dam, laying the Alaskan oil pipeline, and building half of the world’s nuclear power plants, for starters. But Bechtel did not complete these ambitious projects on its own; it did so with the help of such “friends” as Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Dwight Eisenhower, and former employees George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger. Bechtel’s access to high-ranking government officials is unparalleled in the private sector. And with that access comes the temptation to accept favors and influence policy. Business journalist Laton McCartney combines painstaking research and powerful reporting to tell here, for the first time, the explosive inside story of what really goes on at the company that changed the face of the globe. “McCartney has made an important contribution to understanding a powerful U.S. corporation and American business history.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Much-Afraid had been in the service of the Chief Shepherd, whose great flocks were pastured down in the Valley of Humiliation. She lived with her friends and fellow workers Mercy and Peace in a tranquil little white cottage in the village of Much-Trembling. She loved her work and desired intensely to please the Chief Shepherd, but happy as she was in most ways, she was conscious of several things which hindered her in her work and caused her much secret distress and shame. Here is the allegorical tale of Much-Afraid, an every-woman searching for guidance from God to lead her to a higher place.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! A USA TODAY "BEST BOOKS OF 2021" PICK! In the bestselling tradition of The Presidents Club and Presidential Courage, White House history as told through the stories of the best friends and closest confidants of American presidents. Here are the riveting histories of myriad presidential friendships, among them: Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed: They shared a bed for four years during which Speed saved his friend from a crippling depression. Two decades later the friends worked together to save the Union. Harry Truman and Eddie Jacobson: When Truman wavered on whether to recognize the state of Israel in 1948, his lifelong friend and former business partner intervened at just the right moment with just the right words to steer the president’s decision. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Daisy Suckley: Unassuming and overlooked during her lifetime, Daisy Suckley was in reality FDR’s most trusted, constant confidant, the respite for a lonely and overworked President navigating the Great Depression and World War II John Kennedy and David Ormsby-Gore: They met as young men in pre-war London and began a conversation over the meaning of leadership. A generation later the Cuban Missile Crisis would put their ideas to test as Ormsby-Gore became the president’s unofficial, but most valued foreign policy advisor. These and other friendships—including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Franklin Pierce and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Bill Clinton and Vernon Jordan—populate this fresh and provocative exploration of a series of seminal presidential friendships. Publishing history teems with books by and about Presidents, First Ladies, First Pets, and even First Chefs. Now former Clinton aide Gary Ginsberg breaks new literary ground on Pennsylvania Avenue and provides fresh insights into the lives of the men who held the most powerful political office in the world by looking at the friends on whom they relied. First Friends is an engaging, serendipitous look into the lives of Commanders-in-Chief and how their presidencies were shaped by those they held most dear.

Before the nation came to know them as the President and First Lady, Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham were close friends of Webb Hubbell's. Now Hubbell offers insight into how he and the Clintons climbed the political ranks from Arkansas to the White House. Included in this book are intricate tales of Hubbell's support of Bill Clinton in his tensest moments; his friendship with Hillary Rodham Clinton; the tragic death of Vince Foster; details of involvement in Whitewater; an inside look at the Justice Department and partnership with Janet Reno; and insights into famous personalities such as Mac McLarty, Bernie Nussbaum, Bruce Lindsey, Mickey Kantor, and George Stephanopoulos. Hubbell's story is told from the perspective of one who personally knows the President and First Lady. Their friendship began when Hubbell and Hilary Rodham Clinton were partners at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm; and when Bill Clinton worked as Governor of Arkansas, Hubbell served with him as Mayor of Little Rock, and later as chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Hubbell joined the Clintons in the White House as associate attorney general, the third highest ranking member of the Justice Department. His political career ended, however, with the Whitewater scandal and incarceration in federal prison. Why Hubbell committed the crimes he assumes responsibility for are detailed; a conflicted soul struggling with the cynical maelstrom of power and politics. Hubbell comments on his resignation and prison sentence, and reflects on his old friends whom have since isolated him from the White House. The journey is Webb Hubbell's, yet his recounting resonates with the humanity in us all: the love he shares with his wife and family, the grief over losing friends to death or circumstances, and humility when faced with calamity. In the end Hubbell faces the truth with a steadfastness seldom seen in Washington.

"The beloved story of Dumbo the flying elephant and all his circus friends continues in five interconnected tales.. Max Medici's circus is full of curiosity, wonder, and awe--follow Dumbo and friends on a path of discovery--where differences are celebrated and dreams soar"--

Tad Friend's family is nothing if not illustrious: his father was president of College, and at Smith his mother came in second in a poetry contest judged by W.H. Auden -- to Sylvia Plath. For centuries, Wasps like his ancestors dominated American life. But then, in the '60s, their fortunes began to fall. As a young man, Tad noticed that his family tree, for all its glories, was full of alcoholics, depressives, and reckless eccentrics. Yet his identity had already been shaped by the family's age-old traditions and expectations. Part memoir, part family history, and part cultural study of the long swoon of the American Wasp, Cheerful Money is a captivating examination of a cultural crack-up and a man trying to escape its wreckage.