Another one that I may have neglected to mention earlier is Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography.
One of the better takes on our 16th president that has been published within the past year.
I love Tim Powers. You never really know what's going on, who the good guy or the bad guys are, or just where the story is headed.
http://www.theworksoftimpowers.com/powers/declare.htm
"Declare" is perhaps Powers's most ambitious project to date. It is a huge novel, both in length and scope, weighing in at over 500 pages, spanning decades in the telling and transporting the reader all over Europe and the Middle-East.
An audacious mix of fantasy and historical fact, Powers really shows off his extraordinary skills as a novelist with Declare , centering his story around Kim Philby, who was the head of counter-espionage for the British secret service - but who was also in the pay of the KGB for almost fifty years.
Powers has said of this novel "...it's taking Kim Philby's story and weaving a supernatural hidden story into it; it winds up involving Philby's father, St. John Philby, and T. E. Lawrence to some extent, as well as the SIS, MI5, the KGB and GRU, and the French SDECE. And it takes place in London, Kuwait, Berlin, Paris, and on Mount Ararat. I've always been a big fan of John LeCarre, and this is sort of Tradecraft Meets Lovecraft."
"I am taking the whole intricate history of the Cold War and cooking up a supernatural secret explaination for everything ... it is sort of Le Carre characters in a sorceriously torquered spy setting."