Books like Secrecy by Rupert Thomson

In an elite New England college, a charismatic classics professor lures a group of eccentric students into obsessive study, leading them from intellectual curiosity to corruption, betrayal, and ultimately murder.

In 1964 South Carolina, Lily Owens, grieving her mother’s death, seeks refuge with a fierce stand‑in mother and a trio of black beekeeping sisters who open her to the secret world of bees, honey, and healing.

Tom Ripley is hired to travel to Italy and persuade a wayward son to return home, but he becomes obsessed with taking the boy’s life, identity and wealth.

Craig of the Mohicans, a frontier scout turns away from civilization, forming a bond with a Mohican warrior as they escort two sisters across the perilous wilderness of America's frontier.

Set during the French Indochina War, the novel follows British journalist Thomas Fowler, his mistress Phuong, and American idealist Pyle, whose ambitions and tragic fate reshape their lives amid political turmoil.

A Chilean woman embarks on a quest to find her lover in 1840s California's goldfields, facing numerous challenges and adventures along the way.

Mario Puzo traces the rise of the Borgia family, revealing the intertwined forces of ambition, faith, and power that shaped one of Italy’s most notorious dynasties.

A spirited young traveler arrives at Emperor Akbar’s court with a tale of a mysterious, enchantress woman whose story travels to Florence, juxtaposing the hedonistic Mughal capital with the sensual High Renaissance city.

A group of settlers encounters an old trapper on the prairie in 1805, as they push westward over the Great Plains for new land and opportunities in the United States of America, while the country is still being explored.

In the cannily plotted streets of Renaissance Italy, a Vatican courtesan, Damiata, is tasked by Pope Alexander with uncovering the mystery of his beloved illegitimate son’s murder, whilst avoiding betrayal from the Borgia pope’s son.

When the young Cicero enlists Gordianus the Finder, the seasoned detective must unravel a patricide case that pits ambition against justice in ancient Rome.

Near her hundredth birthday, Roseanne McNulty confronts the impending closure of Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital, revealing her life and Ireland’s hidden past through journals with her psychiatrist, Dr Grene.

Mark Booth challenges conventional history, arguing that hidden narratives by secret societies and mystery schools shape our past. He presents a 3,000‑year alternative view spanning Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, Christian, Freemason, and modern influences.

After a stay in Italy, Lady Julia returns to her Sussex estate, only to discover a murder at a nearby abbey. With private investigator Nicholas Brisbane, she navigates intrigue, family secrets and a snowbound conspiracy to uncover the killer before another tragedy.

In the turbulence of 49‑45 B.C., Gordianus the Finder is pulled into a deadly conspiracy when a Pompeian cousin is murdered, forcing him to navigate the perilous politics between Caesar and Pompey to protect his family.

"Cosimo de'Medici (1389-1464), the fabulously wealthy banker who became the leading citizen of Florence in the fifteenth century, spent lavishly as the city's most important patron of art and literature. This book is the first comprehensive examination of the whole body of works of art and architecture commissioned by Cosimo and his sons. By looking closely at this spectacular group of commissions, we gain an entirely new picture of their patron, and of the patron's point of view. Recurrent themes in the commissions - from Fra Angelico's San Marco altarpiece to the Medici palace - indicate the main interests to which Cosimo's patronage gave visual expression. Dale Kent offers new insights and perspectives on the individual objects comprising the Medici oeuvre by setting them within the context of civic and popular culture in early Renaissance Florence, and of Cosimo's life as the leader of the Medici lineage and the dominant force in the governing elite.". "From the wealth of available documentation illuminating Cosimo de'Medici's life, the author considers how his own experience influenced his patronage; how the culture of Renaissance Florence provided a common idiom for the patron, his artists, and his audience; what he preferred and intended as a patron; and how focussing on his patronage of art alters the image of him that is based on his roles as banker and politician. Cosimo was as much a product as a shaper of Florentine society, Kent concludes. She identifies civic patriotism and devotion as the main themes of his oeuvre and argues that religious imperatives may well have been more important than political ones in shaping the art for which he was responsible and its reception."--BOOK JACKET.