"1944, Rome. Newlywed Niki Novotnà is recruited by a new American spy agency to establish a secret branch in Italy's capital. One of the OSS's few female operatives abroad and multilingual, she's tasked with crafting fake stories and distributing propaganda to lower the morale of enemy soldiers. Despite limited resources, Niki and a scrappy team of artists, forgers, and others--now nicknamed The Lipstick Bureau--find success, forming a bond amid...

"Like Fellini's classic film 8 1/2 and mixed with Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty, a gorgeously wrought novel that explores the complicated life of a controversial Italian film producer who vanishes after a fire destroys his home. Rome, present day: an extravagant, opulent world of fashionable parties, fancy cars, and powerful men and women in a constant dance of excess and intrigue. Oscar Martello, president of a film production company, is a self-made...

"The hideously disfigured body was found in the atrium. The only clues are a blood-soaked cloak, and, carved into the stone at the corpse's feet, the word Sparta. The murdered man was the overseer of Marcus Crassus's estate, apparently killed by two runaway slaves bent on joining Spartacus's revolt. In response to the murder, the wealthy, powerful Crassus vows to honor an ancient law and kill his ninety-nine remaining slaves in three days. Now Gordianus...

A man falls to his death from the Tarpeian Rock, which overlooks the Forum in the Capitoline Hill in Ancient Rome. While it looks like a suicide, one witness swears that she saw it happen and that he was pushed. Normally, this would attract very little official notice but this man happened to be in charge of organizing the Imperial Triumphs demanded by the emperor. The Emperor Domitian, autocratic and erratic, has decided that he deserves two Triumphs...

"Chrysippus, esteemed banker, patron of the arts, and scroll merchant," offers to publish Falco's work, but when Falco hears the proposed price and then learns that Chrysippus has been murdered, Falco assembles all the suspects.--Jacket.

As Flavia di Stefano, acting head of Italy's Art Theft Squad, works to retrieve a stolen painting without publicity or payment, her husband, art historian Jonathan Argyll, is preparing a birthday gift: "the provenance of a small Renaissance painting, an Immaculate Conception," that hangs on a friend's wall.--Jacket.

The story of Julius Caesar on the theme that behind every man there stands a woman. In this case there were several, among them his strong-willed mother, his formidable mistress and his beautiful daughter, whom he married to Pompey in order to cement an alliance. The story is told against the background of everyday life in ancient Rome, detailing the mores and manners of the day.