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Max has a new novel scheduled for publication in fall 2012. The working title is Rue du Dragon. Advance praise includes this from Michael Connelly: "Wow! This is storytelling at its very best. Max Byrd uses the whole deck of cards—character, place, history, humor, intrigue—to weave his magical story. You want a good ride? 'Rue du Dragon' is your ticket!" 
 Shooting the SunGrantJeffersonJackson
SHOOTING THE SUNNo Presidents (well, Martin Van Buren has a scene), but a brave heroine. Young Selena Cott, sponsored by the eccentric English inventor of the computer, Charles Babbage, sets out in a wagon train on the Santa Fe Trail in 1840. Her goal: to photograph an eclipse of the sun. Obstacles include the great empty and unmapped spaces of the West, a roving band of Kiowa Indians, and Babbage's own uncle. "Full of insights and laced with subtle humor... The novel is a winner." —Denver Post "Part thriller, part scientific adventure, and all enchanting." —Baltimore Sun BUY THE BOOK:  IndieBoundAmazonBarnes & Noble
Bantam Books, October 2004, ISBN 978-0553380187
GRANTMax originally wanted to call this "General Grant and Private Twain," because much of it concerns the post-Civil War friendship between those two Scotch-drinking, cigar-smoking, prose-writing giants. The novel begins with Grant's decision in 1880 to seek a third term as President—he will fail, not for the first time in his life—and ends with his heroic struggle to write his Memoirs as he lies dying of throat cancer. Twain will publish them. The leading twerp of the 19th century, historian and novelist Henry Adams, also makes a malign appearance, along with his wonderful wife Clover. "Serious, intricate... gripping... Byrd is an expert a linking the products of his own imagination with historical facts." —New York Times Book Review "Historical fiction doesn't get any better than this." —Booklist BUY THE BOOK: AmazonBarnes & Noble
Bantam Books, May 2001, ISBN 978-0553380187 
JEFFERSONA dramatic account of Thomas Jefferson's years as American ambassador in Paris just before the French Revolution, seen mostly from the real-life points of view of Jefferson's secretary, William Short, and Jefferson's married lover, the Englishwoman Maria Cosway. Cameo appearances by the irresistible bon-vivant Gouverneur Morris and Jefferson's personal slave, James Hemings. "A wonderfully vivid novel that brings the Sage of Monticello to life. Jefferson has the organic intimacy of a novel that has sprung full-blown from the imagination of its creator." —New York Times BUY THE BOOK: IndieBoundAmazonBarnes & Noble
Bantam Books, February 1998, ISBN 9780553379372
JACKSONA novel about celebrity and scandal and the squalid, stupendous, and epoch-making election of Andrew Jackson as President in 1828. Not, strictly speaking, political science—there are duels, gunfights in the streets of Nashville, a doomed love affair, and an account of the Battle of New Orleans so stirring that reviewers called it "Homeric." "With Jackson, Byrd has vaulted into the front rank of American historical novelists." —The Wall Street Journal BUY THE BOOK: IndieBoundAmazonBarnes & Noble
Bantam Books, February 1998, ISBN 978-0553379358
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