Shooting Victoria: Madness, Mayhem, and the Rebirth of the British Monarchy

Paul Thomas Murphy. Enlightening study of Queen Victoria (1819-1901) and her reign. Though the book is focused on the attempted assassinations of Victoria, Murphy also shows how those misguided men strengthened both the queen and the empire. It's great fun to see the trail of the author's research as he includes the politics, crises and sensational crimes that went along with each incident. The pages slip by in this well-written new take on Victoria and her times. Murphy's detailed rendering sheds entirely new light on the queen's strengths and her many weaknesses.--Kirkus

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Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day

Stephan Talty. The exciting, improbable adventures of a young Spanish spy who managed to become Britain's most effective tool in deceiving Hitler. The mammoth concerted effort to trick the Germans into believing that the D-Day invasion was not really landing at Normandy but at Calais--despite Hitler's better instincts--required months of careful planning and streams of deceptive information fed to the Germans by agents like Juan Pujol, aka Garbo. A lively, rollicking good read.--Kirkus

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Final Victory: FDR's Extraordinary World War II Presidential Campaign

Stanley Weintraub. Historian Weintraub looks at an ailing President Franklin D. Roosevelt's last campaign. In this well-researched, engaging history, Weintraub effectively brings the players to life, portraying the public and private faces of the witty, indomitable FDR and his opponent, the stiff, humorless New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey. Weintraub shows how Roosevelt, despite his illness, was still a force to be reckoned with. He continued to give dazzling speeches and enjoyed loyal support from many constituencies, including soldiers still at war, who voted absentee for FDR in large numbers. A well-drawn political history of FDR's last days.--Kirkus

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Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II

Keith Lowe. A breathtaking, numbing account of the physical and moral desolation that plagued Europe in the late 1940s. Drawing on recently opened Eastern European archives, Lowe presents a searing and comprehensive view of postwar Europe that calls into question the very nature of World War II. Lowe writes with measured objectivity, honoring the victims of atrocity and understanding the causes of, but refusing to excuse, the violence directed by freed victims against their former oppressors. Authoritative but never dry, stripping away soothing myths of national unity and victimhood, this is a painful but necessary historical task superbly done.--Kirkus

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