The Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller

‘THE ROYAL BOOK OF THE YEAR … You’ve read their side of the story, now read the real story’ Daily Mail

THIS CRISIS IS AS BIG AS THE ABDICATION – SAYS LACEY, HISTORICAL ADVISOR TO THE CROWN.

The world has watched Prince William and Prince Harry since they were born. Raised by Princess Diana to be the closest of brothers, how have the boy princes grown into very different, now distanced men?

From royal expert and bestselling author Robert Lacey, this book is an unparalleled insider account of tumult and secrecy revealing the untold details of William and Harry’s early closeness then estrangement. It asks what happens when two sons are raised for vastly different futures – one burdened with the responsibility of one day becoming king, the other with the knowledge that he will always remain spare.

How have William and Harry each formed their idea of a modern royal’s duty and how they should behave? Were the seeds of damage sowed as Prince Charles and Diana’s marriage painfully unraveled for all the world to see? In the previous generation, how have Prince Charles and Prince Andrew’s lives unfolded in the shadow of the Crown? What choices has Queen Elizabeth II made in marshalling her feuding heirs? What parts have Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle played in helping their husbands to choose their differing paths? And what is the real, unvarnished story behind Harry and Meghan’s dramatic departure?

In the most intimate vision yet of life behind closed doors, with the family’s highs, lows and hardest decisions all laid out, this is a journey into royal life as never offered before.

Movie legend, princess, tragic heroine. The moment Grace Kelly stepped into the spotlight in 1950, the world was entranced.

In this definitive biography of Hollywood’s sweetheart, Robert Lacey looks behind the fairytale facade to reveal the real story of Princess Grace of Monaco, as she became.

Gaining unprecedented access to her family and friends, he tells the story of a complex and conflicted woman determined to live her dream.

The bestselling biographer also reveals new details about Grace’s tragic early death in a car accident that sent shockwaves around the world, and lifts the lid on the affairs that rocked her marriage to Prince Rainier III.

This enhanced edition from Apostrophe Books also provides access to 103 photographs, video, links to newsreel footage and trailers to 12 of Grace Kelly’s films.

First published in 1991 as Little Man: The Gangster Life of Meyer Lansky, the original text has been revised and updated for this edition by Robert Lacey, and much bonus material added.

“Daring and well written … it would be criminal not to read it.” People magazine

They called Meyer Lansky the Godfather of the Godfathers, the Chairman of the Board of the National Crime Syndicate, the Mafia’s banker. They credited him with a personal fortune of $300 million, with having said “We’re bigger than U.S. Steel.” He was portrayed on the screen in The Godfather, Part II as Hyman Roth, dividing up Cuba with his fellow gangsters, and more recently in Boardwalk Empire as himself, played by Anatol Yusef.

If, in the mythology of organized crime, Al Capone symbolized the crude menace of the machine gun and the baseball bat, Meyer Lansky stood for the brains, the sophistication, the hot money, the sheer cleverness of it all. And yet, when it came down to it, no law enforcement official in 60 years could find much to pin on the supposed boss of bosses, and within a few years of Lansky’s death, his crippled son was living on welfare.

Meyer Lansky: The Thinking Man’s Gangster is a book about organized crime unlike any other yet written. In this brilliant biography and social history, Robert Lacey separates the strands of fact and legend in Meyer Lansky’s career, revealing a truth about the gangster life in America that is far more fascinating and dramatic than fiction.

A Jewish immigrant from Russia, Lansky broke into a life of crime running crap games and acting as a shtarke, a strong-arm man for Jewish and Italian gamblers on the Lower East Side of New York. Teaming up with his pals Lucky Luciano and Bugsy Siegel, he graduated to bootlegging. Meyer became the master of the “share-out,” keeping all the figures in his head and dividing up the spoils from smuggled liquor shipments. In the thirties and forties he moved on to illegal gambling, running the classiest casinos around. He invested in modern Las Vegas – though he never really liked the place – and became the gambling consultant to President Batista during Havana’s glory days. In World War II he even acted as a go-between for U.S. Naval Intelligence, paving the way for gangster help to the Allied invasion of Sicily.

Then in 1951 Estes Kefauver’s Senate Crime Committee named Lansky as one of the leaders of organized crime in America, fueling the legend that would eventually destroy him. Cuba’s revolutionary leaders expelled him in 1960 as a corrupting influence. His attempts to go into legitimate business and later to settle in Israel were frustrated by the shadows of his past. His every step was dogged by the FBI and the IRS, as his family disintegrated and his health declined. His death was front-page news, but at the end, his power and wealth were all gone.

Based on dramatic new documentation and firsthand interviews with Lansky’s close friends and business associates, with law enforcement experts, and members of the Lansky family, Meyer Lansky: The Thinking Man’s Gangster is a powerful and irresistible narrative of a man and a way of life never before truly examined. Robert Lacey has written, in this bestselling biography, a groundbreaking exploration of organized crime in America and of our enduring fascination with criminals.

Saudi Arabia is a country defined by paradox: it sits atop some of the richest oil deposits in the world, and yet the country's roiling disaffection produced sixteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. It is a modern state, driven by contemporary technology, and yet its powerful religious establishment would have its customs and practices rolled back to match those of the Prophet Muhammed over a thousand years ago. In a world where events in the Middle East continue to have geopolitical consequences far beyond the region's boundaries, an understanding of this complex nation is essential.

With Inside the Kingdom, British journalist and bestselling author Robert Lacey has given us one of the most penetrating and insightful looks at Saudi Arabia ever produced. More than twenty years after he first moved to the country to write about the Saudis at the end of the oil boom, Lacey has returned to find out how the consequences of the boom produced a society at war with itself.

Filled with stories told by a broad range of Saudis, from high princes and ambassadors to men and women on the street, Inside the Kingdom is in many ways the story of the Saudis in their own words.

A Brief Life of the Queen is a succinct, personal and beautifully illustrated biography of Elizabeth II, who has managed to remain an enigma, despite being the most recognised woman in the world. For more than thirty years Robert Lacey has been gathering material from the members of the Queen's inner circle - her friends, relatives, private secretaries and prime ministers - and the results are distilled in this elegant hardback which marks the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Tracing her life through its major stages, and uncovering her greatest personal loves and trials, A Brief Life of the Queen offers the freshness of the first-hand insights and compelling storytelling for which Robert Lacey's best-selling biographies are renowned.