Oh, let's say a coherent story not dependent on ever-escalating scenes of gruesome violence against women, for starters. What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you? If this review was helpful, please let me know. To this I give them the Bronx Cheer and proudly hold up one finger to represent one star. I also expect my review to be 'Not Helpful' by them (and others). Since this is a new book by a new author, I am sure there will be a rush by the “Shill Reviewers” from the Author and the publishing house to declare this book a 5-star masterpiece second only to The Bible in importance. I must say that the only thing I got from the book was a feeling that I am glad I did not live in those times. As I am not a historian of 16th century politics, I must take on good faith that all events in the book are true. I rushed to buy this book because one of the critics said it was as good as “The Name of the Rose”.

Not being one to waste a credit, I suffered through it but by the middle of the book I just didn’t care anymore and my ears were burning and bleeding. Instead of being able to concentrate on the book, I had to focus on trying to understand what she was saying. The female reader’s accent is so heavy the words are mostly unintelligible. Shame on me! I broke one of my cardinal rules and bought this book without listening to the preview. Traveling across an Italy torn apart by war, they will enter a labyrinth of ancient superstition and erotic obsession to discover at its center a new face of evil - and a truth that will shake the foundations of western civilization. She enlists the help of an obscure Florentine diplomat, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Valentino’s eccentric military engineer, Leonardo da Vinci, who together must struggle to decipher the killer’s taunting riddles: Leonardo with his groundbreaking 'science of observation' and Machiavelli with his new 'science of men'. 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. Against 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.

The Malice of Fortune by Michael Ennis