Max Byrd

From bestselling writer Max Byrd comes an unforgettable evocation and portrait of Paris at the end of the second World War. The splendidly gifted (and faintly scandalous) writer Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway’s famously unhappy third wife, is the presiding spirit over a great romance. Two American soldiers, torn apart by the war, meet and fall in love with Martha’s protégé—the irresistibly charming and vulnerable young reporter, Annie March. Their story begins and ends on the beautiful Pont Neuf, the oldest and best-loved bridge in Paris. For Annie, every bridge connects two different worlds; to cross a bridge is to make a choice. For her, crossing Pont Neuf means choosing one man over the other, one life over another. It is a haunting love story that will move readers to tears. In its Homeric themes of death and love, Eros and Thanatos, Pont Neuf also recalls the epic sweep of Byrd’s earlier novels, especially his acclaimed Civil War novel Grant. Its accounts of the last two massive battles of the war—Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands and the cataclysmic Battle of the Bulge—are riveting and authentic, the result of years of research. These historic moments are not simply a backdrop for romance, but also the treacherous and explosive landscape through which love itself moves. The New York Times called Max Byrd “an expert in blending historical and fictional characters.” Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Joseph Ellis, called him “the reigning champion of American historical fiction.”

Pont Neuf

Penguin Books, Limited

Target of Opportunity

Re-released for the first time in years, the hit action-packed thriller features the unforgettable, original P.I. Mike Haller. P.I. Mike Haller is on the case to find a newsman who suddenly went missing in Sacramento Valley. A tearful, boozy wife has paid him to find her husband, but someone else is attempting to dissuade him--using a .38 with Haller's name and address on it. Packed with crime-stopping action, romance, and suspenseful twists and turns, California Thriller is an exhilarating journey full of snowballing leads and Mike Haller in a race to save thousands of lives.

California Thriller

Max Byrd, the renowned author of Jackson and Jefferson, brings history to life in this stunning novel set in America’s Gilded Age. Grant is an unforgettable portrait of a colorful era—and the flawed, iron-willed, mysterious giant at its center. Ulysses S. Grant pursued a tragic war to its very end. But his final battle starts in 1880, when he loses his race to become the first U.S. President to serve three terms, goes bankrupt, and begins a fight against cancer that will prove to be his greatest challenge. Through journalist Nicholas Trist, readers follow Grant’s journey—and along the way meet Grant’s sworn enemy Henry Adams and Adams’s doomed wife, Clover, the old soldiers Sherman and Sheridan, and the always clever, always scheming Mark Twain. Revealed here are not only the penetrating secrets of our eighteenth president, but the intimate power-brokering that led to the end of Grant’s career, setting the stage for a new era in American history—one defined by politics, not warfare. “Serious, intricate . . . gripping . . . Byrd is an expert at linking the products of his own imagination with historical facts.”—The New York Times Book Review “With the license and gifts of a first-rate novelist, Max Byrd has managed in Grant to reveal the man far better than those who have tried before.”—San Francisco Chronicle “A vibrant, stunning story of Grant’s last years, but best of all, a gripping tale of ‘the reborn nation on the other side of the war.’ ”—Civil War Book Review “Splendid . . . nothing less than a visit with greatness.”—Associated Press “Historical fiction doesn’t get any better than this.”—Booklist

Grant: A Novel

Inspired by Charles Babbage, who believes that his Difference Engine can calculate the longitude of a solar eclipse, astronomer Selena Cott invents a technique to photograph it and embarks on a dangerous journey into the American Southwest.

Shooting the Sun

Max Byrd’s lucidly written and compelling volume aims to provide a scholarly introduction to one of the most puzzling pieces of eighteenth-century literature, and a stimulus to critical thought and discussion. Laurence Sterne – an eccentric and largely unsuccessful clergyman - was forty-six when he sat down in January of 1759 to being his literary masterpiece. Aside from his sermons, only two of which had ever been published, Sterne had little more to do with the literary life than any other respectable provincial clergyman. His explosion into the history of English literature occurred not only without preparation, but also without apparent aptitude. Tristram Shandy, first published in 1985, sketches Sterne’s life and literary antecedents, closely analysing key passages of his great satire and concluding with the critical history and bibliography. It will thus be of use to all students of eighteenth-century English literature.

Tristram Shandy (Routledge Revivals)

From bestselling historical novelist Max Byrd comes a new novel set against the dramatic backdrop of Paris in the Jazz Age--a fascinating suspense tale interwoven with rich historical detail. Paris, 1926. Newspaper reporter Toby Keats, a veteran of the Great War and the only American in Paris who doesn't know Hemingway, has lived a quiet life--until one day he comes into possession of a rare eighteenth-century automate, a very strange and somewhat scandalous mechanical duck. Highly sought after by an enigmatic American banker, European criminals, and the charming young American Elsie Short, the duck is rumored to hold the key to opening a new frontier in weapons technology for the German army, now beginning to threaten Europe once more. Haunted with his nightmarish past in the War, Toby pursues the truth behind the duck. From the boites of the Left Bank to the dark prehistoric caverns of southern France, The Paris Deadline is a story of love, suspense, and mystery in a world stumbling toward catastrophe.

Max Byrd

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