Lost in the Stacks

This historical novel, originally published in 1936, tells the story of Luisa Sanfelice, an impoverished noblewoman in Naples, Italy, at the time of the French Revolution. When revolutionaries briefly take over Naples and overthrow the king and queen, Luisa, a woman of no strong political beliefs, inadvertently becomes a heroine of the revolution when she warns her revolutionary lover about a royalist plot to re-take the city. Much violence ensues, and Sheean's descriptions are not for the squeamish. But Sanfelice makes for a compelling read. The heroine's story has been told several other times, most notably by Alexandre Dumas.

Ancient Roman detective Marcus Didius Falco travels to Germany on a mission for the Emperor Vespasian, to discover what happened to a missing general and to negotiate peace with a powerful Druid priestess. The emperor's son Titus wants Falco out of the way because he has his eye on Falco's girlfriend Helena Justina. Is the barber who Titus sent along with Falco really an assassin? And will Falco have to give up Helena for the good of Rome? Unlike other books in the series, this is more of an adventure novel than a mystery, and it includes plenty of action in the forests of Germany.

In this third mystery in Donna Leon's long-running series set in Venice, Commissario Guido Brunetti investigates the murder of a transvestite whose face was damaged beyond recognition. It turns out that the victim was one of Venice's most prominent bankers, and Brunetti uncovers a scandal involving financial fraud and illegally rented apartments. Meanwhile, he longs to solve the case quickly to avoid becoming the next victim and to escape the heat of August in Venice and join his wife Paola and teenage children on vacation in the mountains. As usual with Leon, the book features Paola's mouth-watering meals, and Brunetti does some cooking for himself this time.

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 book, Michigan State University School of Journalism students cover a range of topics related to faculty behavior that can be stumbling blocks for student learning and civil discourse on today's diverse campuses.

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.