Posts tagged with fiction in Blog Lost in the Stacks

Glass Houses is the latest entry in Louise Penny’s long-running mystery series featuring Chief Superintendent Armand Gamache of the Sûreté de Québec, who lives in the tiny village of Three Pines. After Three Pines' Halloween party, a mysterious figure in a black cloak haunts the village green. Two days later, the figure disappears, but the body of a woman, a visitor to Three Pines, is found wearing the cloak. The story of the murder alternates with the trial of the person accused of it, several months later. Meanwhile, Gamache is trying to capture the head of the most powerful drug cartel in Québec. There is, of course, a connection between the drug trade and the murder in Three Pines, but part of the suspense is figuring out what it is.

Ancient Roman detective Flavia Albia has been hired by palace officials working for the paranoid emperor Domitian to investigate a conspiracy involving a man who pretends to be the emperor Nero. Meanwhile, the newly-married Flavia cares for her husband, who's survived being struck by lightning but has never been the same since, and contends with a series of domestic troubles.

In this complex historical novel, Sarah Dunant tells the story of the infamous Borgia family of Renaissance Italy from several points of view, including the family's patriarch, Pope Alexander VI, and his two illegitimate children, Cesare, the leader of a mercenary army, and Lucrezia, who journeys to the court of Ferrara to marry the duke's heir, while grieving for her previous husband, who was murdered at her brother's orders. A fascinating new point of view is that of Niccolò Machiavelli, a young Florentine diplomat at Cesare's court.

In this stunning historical novel, Margaret George tells the story of the infamous Roman emperor Nero in a completely new way. This Nero is not the mad tyrant who fiddled while Rome burned, as seen in so many Hollywood films. Instead, he is a young man, an artist and athlete, trying to survive in the treacherous world of dynastic politics in imperial Rome.

Ancient Roman private eye Marcus Didius Falco tries to prevent a murder from happening. A "professional bride", Severina Zotica, has been married three times, and each of her husbands has died in suspicious circumstances. Now she's about to marry a fourth husband, a former slave who has made a fortune in real estate, and the members of his household are certain that she killed her first three husbands, and she will try to kill him. Can Falco save the man's life?

Arms of Nemesis is a mystery set in ancient Rome at the time of Spartacus' slave rebellion. Detective Gordianus the Finder investigates the murder of a cousin of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, who wants to lead the army against Spartacus. Two runaway slaves are blamed for the murder, and Crassus wants to slaughter the whole household of slaves in revenge. Gordianus is sure they're innocent, but he has to prove it to Crassus' satisfaction in three days' time.

Ancient Roman private eye Marcus Didius Falco travels to the cities of southern Italy, including Pompeii eight years before the eruption of Vesuvius, to track down conspirators against the emperor Vespasian and to win the heart of the aristocratic woman he loves, Helena Justina. This is another thrilling entry in the popular mystery series.

A humorous vampire story for readers who are tired of the attractive, good vampires of the past decade or so.

This is the latest in a series of British village mysteries, set in Cornwall, England in the early 1970s. The two protagonists, widow Eleanor Trewynn and her niece, Detective Sergeant Megan Pencarrow, hunt for spies at a peace conference and track down two criminals who have kidnapped Megan's almost-boyfriend Nick and a lawyer who's an acquaintance of Eleanor's. This series is perfect for fans of Agatha Christie.

This historical novel tells the story of the brilliant Renaissance artist Fra Filippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti, the woman who inspired him.