The sport of kings is the backdrop for a game of murder where one player loses more than the match. Can Cleo solve the case, or will the murderer win? Summer has arrived along with a plethora of social events that keep Cleo and her cousins busy. Between balls, dinners, concerts and picnics, they attend the final match between two proud polo clubs. When the winning team's captain is found murdered in the stables, everyone assumes the opposing team's captain killed him. After all, he was found holding the murder weapon, and everyone knows they hated each other. But Cleo isn't convinced. She sets out to prove his innocence alongside Harry Armitage, who was employed to investigate the accused man's family. With their cases overlapping, it makes sense to work together. The more they get to know the victim, the more they realize the handsome athlete sported a dark side that few people saw. Those who did had a reason to kill him. Which suspect...

A bracing assessment of U.S. foreign policy over the past two decades, anchored by a major new essay commissioned by the Pentagon about changing power dynamics among China, Eurasia, and America—from the bestselling author of The Revenge of Geography. Drawing on decades of firsthand experience as a foreign correspondent and military embed for The Atlantic, and deep reading that ranges from the lessons of Thucydides and Sun Tzu to contemporary outcomes in the Middle East, Robert D. Kaplan makes a powerful case for what timeless principles and factors should shape America's role in the world: a respect for the limits of Western-style democracy; a delineation between American interests versus American values; an awareness of the psychological toll of warfare; a projection of military power via a strong navy; and much more. In a series of vivid and clear-eyed assessments, renowned foreign policy analyst Kaplan describes an increasingly unstable...

In Jilly Cooper's third Rutshire chronicle we meet Ricky France-Lynch, who is moody, macho, and magnificent. He had a large crumbling estate, a nine-goal polo handicap, and a beautiful wife who was fair game for anyone with a cheque book. He also had the adoration of fourteen-year-old Perdita MacLeod. Perdita couldn't wait to leave her dreary school and become a polo player. The polo set were ritzy, wild, and gloriously promiscuous. Perdita thought she'd get along with them very well. But before she had time to grow up, Ricky's life exploded into tragedy, and Perdita turned into a brat who loved only her horses - and Ricky France-Lynch. Ricky's obsession to win back his wife, and Perdita's to win both Ricky and a place as a top class polo player, take the reader on a wildly exciting journey – to the estancias of Argentina, to Palm Beach and Deauville, and on to the royal polo fields of England and the glamorous pitches of California where the most heroic battle of all is destined to be fought – a match that is about far more than just the winning of a huge silver cup...

An extraordinary tale of travel that remains one of the world's greatest travel books.

On trial in Russia, Blackford Oakes fights to carry out a mission that will change the course of the Cold War The prisoner in the dock is accused of unspeakable crimes against the Soviet Union—charges Blackford Oakes is proud to be guilty of. The agent has spent 9 years fighting the spread of Communism in Europe, and he intends to continue the battle. It shouldn't be hard for the Russians to convict him of espionage—after all, Oakes was found on Soviet soil in a downed U-2 spy plane—and it will take a masterstroke for the agent to escape execution. The funny thing is, the Russians are playing right into his hands. After 3 years on leave from the CIA, Oakes was brought back to take part in 1 of the most daring operations in intelligence history. His mission is to crash the plane, get captured, and endure the trial. So far, everything's going according to plan. Now he just has to get out of the Soviet Union alive. Marco...

Newbery Honor--winning author Alan Armstrong's latest book!Eleven-year-old Mark's anthropologist father has disappeared in the Gobi desert while tracing Marco Polo's ancient route from Venice to China. His mother decides they must go to Venice to petition the agency that sent Mark's father to send out a search party. Anxious about his father and upset about spending Christmas away from home, Mark gets a bad asthma attack in the middle of the night. That's when Doc Hornaday, an old friend of Mark's father, makes a house call, along with a massive black Tibetan mastiff called Boss. To distract Mark from his wheezing and to pass the long Venetian night, the Doc starts to spin for Mark the tale of Marco Polo. Doc describes Marco's travels and the boy finds himself falling under the spell of the story that has transfixed the world for centuries. Marco's journey bolsters Mark's courage and whets his appetite for risk and adventure, and for exposure to life in all its...

Second in the Dragon Quartet, sequel to the funny, moving pageturner, The Birthday Dragon. Polo is growing up, still not good at keeping his clothes on or moderating his drug intake. His crazy family are trying to kill him, or worse, be his parents again. One thing he knows, the army’s not for him. Adventure with more than one twist, set in a vivid new world where Men (and Women) might be Dragons.

Mr Sutton Armadale, the financier, was shot dead on the private polo ground of his palatial home. Before expiring in his gamekeeper's arms, he muttered the one word "murder".Among the suspects are Armadale's second wife; a drunken, loud-mouthed stranger in the neighbourhood; and an irresistibly attractive ballerina. The amiable and eccentric Algernon Vereker finds the case as befuddling as a crack on the head from a polo mallet. Two witnesses were certain they heard two shots fired, yet only one spent cartridge case was found on the ground by the dead man's body. What is the "Sutton Stakes" connection... and is a "Bombay Head" part of the solution?The Polo Ground Mystery (1932) is a classic country house whodunit, with a sporting equestrian theme. The second of the Algernon Vereker mysteries, this new edition is the first published in over 70 years. It features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.'A first-rate thriller - keeping you...

As the most celebrated European to explore Asia, Marco Polo was the original global traveler and the earliest bridge between East and West. A universal icon of adventure and discovery, he has inspired six centuries of popular fascination and spurious mythology. Now, from the acclaimed author of Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe (“Superb . . . A first-rate historical page turner”—The New York Times)—comes the first fully authoritative biography of one of the most enchanting figures in world history. In this masterly work, Marco Polo’s incredible odyssey—along the Silk Road and through all the fantastic circumstances of his life—is chronicled in sumptuous and illuminating detail.We meet him as a callow young man, the scion of a wealthy Venetian merchant family, only seventeen when he sets out in 1271 with his father and uncle on their journey to Asia. We see him gain the confidence of Kublai Khan, the world’s most feared and powerful leader, and watch him become a trusted diplomat and intelligence agent in the ruler’s inner circle. We are privy to his far-flung adventures on behalf of the Khan, living among the Mongols and other tribes, and traveling to magical cities, some far advanced over the West. We learn the customs of the Khan’s court, both erotic and mercantile, and Polo’s uncanny ability to adapt to them. We follow him on his journey back to Venice, laden with riches, the latest inventions, and twenty-four years’ worth of extraordinary tales.And we see his collaboration with the famed writer Rustichello of Pisa, who immediately saw in Polo the story of a lifetime; enlivened by his genius for observation, Polo’s tales needed little embellishment. Recorded by Rustichello as the two languished as prisoners of war in a Genoese jail, the Travels would explode the notion of non-Europeans as untutored savages and stand as the definitive description of China until the nineteenth century.Drawing on original sources in more than half a dozen languages, and on his own travels along Polo’s route in China and Mongolia, Bergreen explores the lingering controversies surrounding Polo’s legend, settling age-old questions and testing others for significance. Synthesizing history, biography, and travelogue, this is the timely chronicle of a man who extended the boundaries of human knowledge and imagination. Destined to be the definitive account of its subject for decades to come, Marco Polo takes us on a journey to the limits of history—and beyond.

From Publishers WeeklyBest known as the drummer for the rock power trio, the Police, Copeland has developed a successful career composing for film and stage, post-Police, as well as a deep passion for polo. Given such a pedigree, his autobiography might be read as that of a seriously rarefied man—a rock star, composer and English country gent. Yet Copeland's natural humility and sincerity encourage a most intimate, even familiar read. However, his memoir emerges as a series of extended but sometimes haphazardly arranged reminiscences, which occasionally distort his personal chronology. During such disjunctures, Copeland's otherwise smart and easygoing prose morphs into a rather laborious, even confusing read. But the work is worth it. Copeland's confessions from the 2007–2008 reunion tour of the Police, which make up the more engaging second half of the book, form a seamless and irresistible narrative. The ego-driven tempests that have articulated the life and times of the Police are laid out by Copeland in a fresh and honest way, not without self-implication either. More than anything else, however, Copeland makes readers feel as if they were on stage with him, Sting and Andy Summers, sharing with us the thrill of performing with one of the great bands of all time. (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review“The well-written and funny memoir is an entertaining journey through the strange rhythms, adventures, ritual, and mojo after the breakup of [The Police]...This is the stuff that makes rock-n-roll memoir.” (Sacramento Book Review ) “Copeland’s confessions from the 2007–2008 reunion tour of the Police form a seamless and irresistible narrative...Readers feel as if they were on stage with him, Sting and Andy Summers, sharing with us the thrill of performing with one of the great bands of all time.” (Publishers Weekly ) “[Copeland’s] multifaceted and generous embracing of many kinds of experiences give this book an especially rich texture. He has an entertaining style and a flair for the witty and well-timed anecdote.” (Library Journal )

The incredible story of Marco Polo's journey to the ends of the earth has for the last seven hundred years been beset by doubts as to its authenticity. Did this intrepid Venetian really trek across Asia minor as a teenager, explore the length and breadth of China as the ambassador of the ruthless dictator, Kublai Khan, and make his escape from almost certain death at the hands of Kublai Khan's successors? Robin Brown's book aims to get to the truth of Marco Polo's claims. Covering his early life, his extraordinary twenty-four-year Asian epic and his reception in Italy on his return, 'Marco Polo' places the intrepid Venetian in context, historically and geographically. What emerges confirms the truth of Polo's account. Polo, scholars now agree, opened vistas to the medieval mind and stirred the interest in exploration that prompted the age of the European ocean voyages. All who now enjoy the fruits of Marco Polo's incredible journey through Asia - whether in the form of...