Bøger af Nicholas Nicastro

A bold reimagining of the Greek mathematician's singular life as a truly modern scientist. Galileo, Leonardo, Newton, and Tesla revered him: Archimedes of Syracuse--an engineer who single-handedly defied the world's most powerful army and a mathematician who knew more in 212 BCE than all of Europe would know for the next seventeen centuries. In this bold reimagining, modern polymath Nicholas Nicastro shines a new light on Archimedes' life and work. Far from the aloof, physically inept figure of historical myth, Archimedes is revealed to be an ambitious, combative, and fiercely competitive man. A genius who challenged an empire, Archimedes emerges in this book as the world's first fully modern scientist--millennia before his intellectual descendants transformed our world.

"Welcome to the bloody end of bleeding Kansas..."Based on true events, this unforgettable novel tells the story of the Bloody Benders, a family of grifters and thieves running an isolated feed store on the Kansas plains, boarding travelers along the Great Osage Trail.Beautiful Kate Bender was mysterious and well-versed in the dark arts; Ma and Pa were quiet and foreboding, speaking in guttural tones; and young John Bender was thought to be insane. On land soaked with the blood of conflict, the Benders made their home. And one by one, prairie travelers began to disappear...Rooted in history, this is a vivid tale of the Benders' origins, and how they became some of the most horrific figures in early post-Civil War America."This meticulously researched, vividly told story marries an almost biblical poetry to the rough action of a Western. Readers who can stomach its violence will find a bleak beauty in this portrayal of one of the American prairie's ugliest stories.A heavenly retelling of a hellish tale."- Kirkus Reviews"'Hell's Half-Acre' is a powerful and involving work. Nicastro's anti-heroine, Kate Bender, is so winningly characterized he made me pull for her in a very unexpected way. But what sticks with me most is the land as the austere staging for this drama. The world is a stage and it's as stark as all of Kansas with nowhere to hide. Nicastro's language is equal to it."- Lamar Herrin, author of "The Unwritten Chronicles of Robert E. Lee" and "The Lies Boys Tell"

On a cool November evening in 1901, Ella Maud ("Nell") Cropsey went out on her porch with her long-time boyfriend, Jim Wilcox. It was an evening like many before, in a town like any other, where extraordinary things rarely happened. Except this time Nell did not return.The mystery of her disappearance is still unsolved, haunting the community where it unfolded. It is the archetype of the modern news "event", followed by millions around the nation and abroad at the dawn of the 20th century. Later, it became a celebrated Big Trial, straining primitive wire services as they struggled to give readers the descriptions, pictures, and details they craved. Finally, it became an unlikely redemption story, as voices around the nation rose up against what many viewed as a miscarriage of justice. The tragedy of Nell Cropsey contains the seeds of a thousand true-life sagas of despoiled innocence, of vanishing and murder and exoneration in the hot light of media scrutiny, down to today.In this speculative novel, Nicholas Nicastro marshals contemporary accounts, forensic science, psychology and the skills of a veteran historical novelist to reimagine Nell's person, family, world and legacy. Did Jim Wilcox have something to do with her fate? Or did the rush to judge him conceal another, more troubling reality--one that could not be washed away by the oily waters of the Pasquotank River? In the middle of it all, Wilcox remained curiously still, hardly defending himself, as the argument raged in the town and around the nation: what befell Nell Cropsey?"In this novel set in the early 1900s, one act tragically ruins the lives of two families. Based on a true story, this work of speculative fiction explores the murder of Ella Maud 'Nell' Cropsey, the attractive, 19-year-old standout of a large family of transplanted Northerners in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. After a breakup with Jim Wilcox, her longtime beau, Nell disappears. Some speculate that she ran off to seek her fortune in a large metropolis while others fear that she harmed herself. But after her body pops up in a local river weeks later, suspicion falls on rough-edged Jim...There's a palpable sense of opportunities lost because of her death at such a young age. In this well-researched book, Nicastro cannily reveals just enough about Nell's death to make readers uneasy until just before the wistful conclusion. Nell is gone, but her death also effectively ends the lives of Jim, Ollie, William, and Mary, the sisters' long-suffering mother. The author skillfully makes his point that one misdeed produces many victims. The author continues his successful run of historical fiction with this thought-provoking crime tale."- Kirkus Reviews

It is a tale of two cities--the legendary duel between haughty, democratic Athens and brutal, unbeaten Sparta. After seven years of bloody conflict, a barren island in a remote corner of Greece becomes the stage for what promises to become a second Thermopylae. Four hundred Spartan soldiers are cut off by enemy ships on a narrow strip of land, starving, without supplies, yet sworn to uphold their indomitable heritage. Meanwhile, all around them, the powerful Athenian Navy masses for the inevitable assault. As the war of nerves wears on, Spartan nobles and Athenian demagogues maneuver in the background--and two estranged Spartan brothers serve together for the first time. The eldest, Antalcidas, is a legendary warrior hobbled by a damaging secret. His brother Epitadas is envied, popular, and cruel. Together they must overcome a lifetime of hostility to survive the battle of their lives."With 'The Isle of Stone', Nicholas Nicastro joins the illustrious pedigree of Mary Renault, Valerio Massimo Manfredi and Steven Pressfield with great style and enormous panache. His hero's checkered life story is used to frame a dark and darkening history of Sparta between a hugely destructive natural disaster, a great earthquake in 464 BC, and a self-inflicted, man-made debacle during the prolonged and even more destructive Peloponnesian War. Nicastro knows his ancient sources intimately, but also has the born novelist's instinct to flesh out their bare bones all too plausibly. Nicastro's antiheroes of the isle of Sphacteria are the dark side of Pressfield's heroes in Gates of Fire: both demand and repay the attention of all lovers of expert historical fiction."--Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History, University of Cambridge, and author of "Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past""From its explosive first pages, 'The Isle of Stone' draws you into the gritty reality of Sparta during the Peloponnesian War. Nicastro writes powerful prose, but this is no exercise in debunking. With drama, passion, and a sure touch for the facts, Nicastro reveals the heroism behind the humiliation of the shocking day when some of Sparta's unconquerable soldiers surrendered. His images of life and death under the Mediterranean sun hit you like the glare of a polished shield." --Barry Strauss, author of The Battle of "Salamis: The Naval Encounter that Saved Greece - and Western Civilization" and Professor of History and Classics, Cornell University"Having brought John Paul Jones and Alexander the Great to life, Nicastro ('Empire of Ashes') turns his formidable skills as a historical novelist on an obscure episode in the Peloponnesian War, that almost three-decade conflict between Athens and Sparta, which he labels antiquity's 'war to end all wars.' The choice to have a narrow focus, rather than an all-encompassing epic sweep, proves a wise one, as it enables Nicastro to go into nitty-gritty detail about the lifestyles of Greece in 425 B.C., making the harsh Spartan attitudes, for example, comprehensible, if not acceptable, to a modern sensibility. The author instills emotional depth in his three main characters-Damatria, a wealthy Spartan woman, and her two sons, Antalcidas and Epitadas-and the supporting cast through adept use of the telling descriptive phrase. The careful research and study that went into this book should enthrall fans of the classics, military history buffs and general readers." --Publisher's Weekly