Against a teeming canvas of Borgia politics, Niccolò Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci come together to unmask an enigmatic serial killer, as we learn the secret history behind one of the most controversial works in the western canon, The Prince...
When Pope Alexander dispatches a Vatican courtesan, Damiata, to the remote fortress city of Imola to learn the truth behind the murder of Juan, his most beloved illegitimate son, she cannot fail, for the scheming Borgia pope holds her own young son hostage. Once there, Damiata becomes a pawn in the political intrigues of the pope’s surviving son, the charismatic Duke Valentino, whose own life is threatened by the condottieri, a powerful cabal of mercenary warlords. Damiata suspects that the killer she seeks is one of the brutal condottierri, and as the murders multiply, her quest grows more urgent. She enlists the help of an obscure Florentine diplomat, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Valentino’s eccentric military engineer, Leonardo da Vinci, who together must struggle to decipher the killer’s taunting riddles: Leonardo with his groundbreaking “science of observation” and Machiavelli with his new “science of men.” Traveling across an Italy torn apart by war, they will enter a labyrinth of ancient superstition and erotic obsession to discover at its center a new face of evil—and a truth that will shake the foundations of western civilization.
- Books to Read in a Day
- Neurodivergence & Disability Visibility
- New eBook Additions
- Local History: Images of Ohio
- Series Starters- Comics & Manga
- Adult New Readers
- James Patterson Read-Alikes for All Ages
- 🌈READ WITH PRIDE 🏳️🌈
- Fiction Published in a World Language
- 🧑🏽🎨 YOU Can Be an Artist 🧑🏽🎨
- Never Judge a Book by the Movie
- Transgender and Nonbinary Voices
- Muslim Voices
- See all
- A Great Narrator Makes a Good Book Better
- New Audiobook Additions
- Celebrity Book Club Titles on Audio
- First in Series Audiobooks
- Most Popular Nonfiction Audiobooks
- Fears for Your Ears
- I Need A Laugh
- Perfect for Day Trips
- 5-10 Hours Long
- Audiobooks-Loooonnnnggg Audiobooks
- Full Cast Audiobooks
- Try Something Different
- Perpetually Popular Diverse Reads
- See all