Sports Corruption

How do you live with yourself when you’ve deceived the one you love? How do you move on when the person you’ve been fighting to save betrays you? Two years ago, Maggie Stevens began the hunt. Four weeks ago, Maggie’s world fell apart, when she finally found what she’d been looking for. And when Quentin, who had blindly trusted her, unravelled her web of lies. Now, Maggie lives in the dark.

With great corruption comes great power. Jack is pretty sure that's the way the saying goes. It's a good thing, too, for the war in Ter’nodril, which he’d hoped would spell the beginning of the end for the DIR, instead left him corrupted, body and soul. The good news is that the Fallen used the Blight that now fills his veins as a weapon in their war against the gods themselves. He’s sure that he can find a way to use it, too, to destroy Valia Online once and for all. He even knows exactly who he'll test its power against first: Manhart.

In the wake of the rebel Niyandrians' abduction attempt, Anskar DeVantte, now a knight-inferior of the Order of Eternal Vigilance, has set sail with the Grand Master, bound for the mother house in Sansor. Anskar has already begun to suspect that the Order's holy convictions aren't as pure as they appear, and his doubts are confirmed when the ship detours to the slave markets of Atya. As the Grand Master gathers an expedition to retrieve an ancient artifact from an unearthed ruin, Anskar finds himself torn.

Anastasia was a Russian mafia princess. I was unworthy to even look at her. But that didn’t stop a bond, a friendship to form between us. She was the only good and right thing in my painful, brutal life. She was the only one who could look at my bruises and wounds and see I wasn’t a total waste of space. But I was ripped away from her, thrust into the underground world of violence and fighting, molded and shaped to be the ultimate killing machine for the Bratva. And that’s who I was now. Razoreniye. Ruin.

In this compelling new book, relying on original reporting from the most dangerous corners of Rio to the halls of power in Washington, DC, Dave Zirin examines how sports and politics are colliding in remarkable fashion in Brazil, opening up an international conversation on the culture, economics, and politics of sports.