The pope is dead. Cardinals are beginning to arrive at the Vatican to select his replacement, but one has fled for Malta in search of a document that dates back to the 4th century and Constantine the Great. Former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone is in Italy, on the trail of legendary letters between Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini that could re-write history. But someone else is after the same leters and, when Malone obtains and...

The Knights of the Golden Circle was the largest and most dangerous clandestine organization in American history. It amassed billions in stolen gold and silver, all buried in hidden caches across the United States. Since 1865 treasure hunters have searched, but little of that immense wealth has ever been found. Now, 160 years later, two factions of what remains of the Knights of the Golden Circle want that lost treasure - one to spend it for their...

History recalls that the ugly feud between J. Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King, Jr., marked by years of illegal surveillance and the accumulation of secret files, ended on April 4, 1968, when King was assassinated by James Earl Ray. But that may not have been the case. Now, 50 years later, former Justice Department agent, Cotton Malone, must reckon with the truth of what really happened that fateful day in Memphis. It all turns on an incident from...

King Ludwig II of Bavaria was an enigmatic figure who was deposed in 1886, mysteriously drowning three days later. Eccentric to the point of madness, history tells us that in the years before he died Ludwig engaged in a worldwide search for a new kingdom, one separate, apart, and in lieu of Bavaria. A place he could retreat into and rule as he wished. But a question remains: did he succeed? Enter Cotton Malone. After many months, Malone's protege,...

1945. In the waning months of World War II, Japan hid vast quantities of gold and other stolen valuables in boobytrapped underground caches all across the Philippines. By 1947 some of that loot was recovered, not by treasure hunters, but by the United States government, which told no one about the find. Instead, those assets were stamped, classified, shipped to Europe, and secretly assimilated into something called the Black Eagle Trust. Present day....