Jim McGill, the first private eye to live in the White House, calls himself The President’s Henchman. As the husband of President Patricia Darden Grant, he can call himself pretty much what he wants.But with privilege comes obligation. When Patti travels to a G-8 meeting in England, McGill is fitted for evening wear and drafted to be Patti’s escort at a gilded dinner. He’s okay with that. But while Patti is busy reshaping the world, McGill fears his time will be occupied cutting ribbons.Then Glen Kinnard’s daughter, Emilie, asks for help. McGill knows Kinnard from their days as Chicago cops. They were never friends and once almost came to blows. But McGill is a soft touch for a young woman looking out for her dad, and, oh, does Kinnard need help.Taking the ashes of his late wife to her native Paris, Kinnard got into a fight with the star player of the French national soccer team. The brawl under the Pont d’Iéna, the bridge at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, left Kinnard unconscious and the Frenchman dead. Kinnard swears he was only trying to protect a woman the Frenchman was beating. But the woman has disappeared.The French allow McGill to investigate, provided he accepts Gabriella Casale, a State Department Security Officer as his bodyguard, that he works with the investigating magistrate assigned to the case, and that he wraps things up in a week.In Paris, McGill encounters gypsy con artists, British soccer hooligans and a monstrous brute known as The Undertaker. And he tries to ignore rumors reaching him that the president of France was Patti’s old college boyfriend, and things back in England are heating up once again.Time is short and there’s a lot to do— because at the end of the week McGill still has to don his white tie and tails for dinner with Patti and the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

The author of "Digger" and "The Concrete Inquisition" presents this thriller featuring an ex-cop who solved the murder of the president's first husband and brought the killers to justice, and who himself becomes the first private eye to live in the White House.

Françoise Laurent has never had an easy life. The only surviving child of a destitute washerwoman and wayward soldier, she must rely only on herself to get by. When her parents die suddenly from the smallpox ravishing New France (modern-day Montreal), Françoise sees it as a chance to escape the life she thought she was trapped in. Seizing her newfound opportunity, Françoise takes a job as an aide to the wife of a wealthy fur trader. The poverty-ridden world she knew transforms into a strange new world full of privilege and fine things — and of never having to beg for food. But Françoise’s relationships with the other servants in Madame Pommereau’s house are tenuous, and Madame Pommereau isn’t an easy woman to work for. When Françoise is caught stealing a pair of her mistress’s beautiful gloves, she faces a future even worse than she could have imagined: thrown in jail, she is sentenced to death by hanging. Once again, Françoise is left to her own devices to survive ... Is she cunning enough to convince the prisoner in the cell beside her to become the hangman and marry her, which, by law, is the only thing that could save her life? Based on an actual story and filled with illuminating historical detail, THE HANGMAN IN THE MIRROR transports readers to the harsh landscape of a new land that is filled with even harsher class divisions and injustices.

Somebody in Washington is updating Shakespeare. The first thing he wants to do is kill all the lobbyists. Knocking off three of them in consecutive weeks, he's off to a fast start. On the lapel of each victim, the killer leaves a pin that, arguably, resembles Porky Pig.The Metro police are on the case when Putnam Shady steps forward and identifies the third victim as a friend. Authority averse, Putnam gives the cops only bare bones information -- but he tells Margaret "Sweetie" Sweeney that he thinks he will be the next victim.The reason, he explains, is quite simple. There are two plans afoot to seize control of the federal government. At the center of one plan is the speaker of the House of Representatives. The group behind the other plan consisted of Putnam and his three dead colleagues.Sweetie vows to protect Putnam. She enlists Jim McGill, the president's henchman, to find out who is behind the murders. But then McGill's whole world is turned upside down. His son, Kenny, is diagnosed with leukemia.President Patricia Grant's life is only slightly less tumultuous. Her enemies force her to leave the Republican Party. Erna Godfrey implicates her husband, Reverend Burke Godfrey, in the killing of Patti's first husband, Andrew Hudson Grant. But Reverend Godfrey refuses to go down without a fight.Amidst the turmoil, Welborn Yates and Kira Fahey schedule their marriage -- and inevitably have to deal with wedding crashers.

An Elizabethan espionage thriller in which playwright Christopher Marlowe spies on Mary, Queen of Scots while navigating the perils of politics, theater, romance—and murder. England, 1585. In Kit Marlowe's last year at Cambridge, he is approached by Queen Elizabeth's spymaster offering an unorthodox career opportunity: going undercover to intercept a Catholic plot to put Mary, Queen of Scots on Elizabeth's throne. Spying on Queen Mary turns out to be more than Kit bargained for, but his salary allows him to mount his first play, and over the following years he becomes the toast of London's raucous theater scene. But when Kit finds himself reluctantly drawn back into the world of espionage and treason, he realizes everything he's worked so hard to attain—including the trust of the man he loves—could vanish in an instant. Pairing modern language with period detail, Allison Epstein brings Elizabeth's lavish court, Marlowe's colorful theater troupe, and the squalor of sixteenth-century London to vivid, teeming life. At the center of the action is Kit himself—an irrepressible, irreverent force of nature.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER “Brilliant!” —Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author “Two well-chewed thumbs up.” —Gregg Hurwitz, New York Times bestselling author An addictive debut thriller starring an FBI consultant with a peculiar taste for crime and punishment… A boy vanishes on his way home from school. His frantic mother receives a ransom call: pay or else. It’s only hours before the deadline, and the police have no leads. Enter Timothy Blake, an FBI consultant with a knack for solving impossible cases but whose expertise comes at a price. Every time he saves a life, he takes one, trying to satisfy an urge he fears he can only control for so long. And this time Blake may have met his match. The kidnapper is more cunning and ruthless than any he’s faced before. And he’s been assigned a new partner within the Bureau: a woman linked to the past he’s so desperate to forget. Because he has a secret, one so dark he will do anything to keep it hidden. For fans of Dexter and Hannibal, Hangman introduces a darkly mesmerizing character whose skill at finding criminals comes from a knowledge that can only be learned firsthand.

From 1573 to 1617, Master Franz Schmidt was the executioner for the towns of Bamberg and Nuremberg. During that span, he personally executed more than 350 people while keeping a journal throughout his career. A Hangman’s Diary is not only a collection of detailed writings by Schmidt about his work, but also an account of criminal procedure in Germany during the Middle Ages. With analysis and explanation, editor Albrecht Keller and translators C. Calvert and A. W. Gruner have put together a masterful tome that sets the scene of execution day and puts you in Master Franz Schmidt’s shoes as he does his duty for his country. Originally published more than eighty years ago, A Hangman’s Diary gives a year-by-year breakdown on all of Master Schmidt’s executions, which include hangings, beheadings, and other methods of murder, as well as explanations of each crime and the reason for the punishment. An incredible classic, A Hangman’s Diary is more than a history lesson; it shows the true anarchy that inhabited our world only a few hundred years ago. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Picking up where international bestseller "The Hangman's Daughter" left off, the highly anticipated sequel about a dark legacy of the Knights Templar.

J.D. Cade came home to southern Illinois from Vietnam and thought he’d never have to kill again. He was wrong. Someone starts blackmailing him. Not only does this new anonymous enemy know J.D.’s darkest secrets, he also implicates J.D.’s son in a death that could reignite a blood feud.The blackmailer wants J.D. to use his deadly skills to assassinate Senator Franklin Delano Rawley — the first African-American with a chance to become president of the United States.In order to save his son, spare Rawley and emerge alive, J.D. must somehow find out who is behind a conspiracy that could change the fate of a nation.(First published in June, 2000 — eight years before the election of Barack Obama.)