The assassination of an American diplomat in Hungary places a Cairo-based CIA agent, an Egyptian intelligence agent, and an American analyst at the mercy of a dangerous political game of shifting allegiances.

Meet Persephone Wilder, a displaced genius posing as the wife of an American diplomat in Namibia. Persephone takes her job as a representative of her country seriously, coming up with an intricate set of rules to survive the problems she encounters: how to dress in hundred-degree weather without showing too much skin, how not to look drunk at embassy functions, and how to eat roasted oryx with grace. She also suspects her husband is not actually the...

"Nicole Avant-diplomat, philanthropist, filmmaker-grew up surrounded by some of the most extraordinary artists of our time: Bill Withers, Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones, Sidney Poitier. Her parents-entertainment mogul, Clarence Avant, and legendary philanthropist, Jacqueline Avant-turned their home into a place of refuge and inspiration for a generation of geniuses. Nicole drew on that magical upbringing to create a stellar career in the music business,...

"Ambassador William J. Burns is the most distinguished and admired American diplomat of the last half century. Over the course of four decades, he played a central role in the most consequential diplomatic episodes of his time--from the bloodless end of the Cold War to the collapse of post-Cold War relations with Putin's Russia, from post-9/11 tumult in the Middle East to the secret nuclear talks with Iran. Upon his retirement in 2014, Secretary John...

"For more than a decade, Ron Capps, serving as both a senior military intelligence officer and as a Foreign Service officer for the U.S. Department of State, was witness to war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. From government atrocities in Kosovo, to the brutal cruelties perpetrated in several conflicts in central Africa, the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and culminating in genocide in Darfur, Ron acted as an intelligence collector and...

Something has got Aurel Timescu's attention: an unsolved and apparently unsolvable crime. A vacationer has been found hanged. And it is a crime that will go unpunished if Aurel isn't ready for the fight of his life. Aurel Timescu's French is tinged with a Romanian accent, he has the disheveled air of a character from between the wars, and a past as a performer in piano bars. Nobody can quite understand how he got to be Consul. Now, he's taken a position...

"1970 was the last year of the Beatles and the first year of the supersonic Concorde-a time of new possibilities and social upheaval, and Jennifer Hosten, a young airline hostess from the Caribbean island of Grenada, was as surprised as anyone to find herself in the midst of it. After winning a Miss Grenada contest, she travelled to London for the 1970 Miss World pageant and arrived at Royal Albert Hall determined to make her mark. So, too, did members...

"The Russian Empire once extended deep into America: in 1818, Russia's furthest outposts were in California and Hawaii. The dreamer behind this great Imperial vision was Nikolai Rezanov--diplomat, adventurer, courtier, millionaire, and gambler ... [In this book, the author] conjures a[n] ... original portrait of one of Russia's most eccentric Empire-builders"--