Damiata suspects that the killer she seeks is one of the brutal condottierri, and as the murders multiply, her quest grows more urgent. 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.

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. Military Academy at West Point, and has been published in a number of books and anthologies as well as magazines ranging from Esquire and Texas Monthly to I.D., ARTnews, and Architectural Digest.Īgainst 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… His non-fiction writing, on subjects ranging from military preparedness and national politics to art and architecture, has won several national awards, been included in the curriculum of the U.S. He earned his degree in history from the University of California, Berkeley, and is a former John D.

His previous international best-selling historical novels are Byzantium and Duchess of Milan. Michael Ennis is the New York Times best selling author of the historical thriller The Malice of Fortune, published in the United States by Doubleday in September 2012, and internationally in twelve countries to date.

The malice of fortune