FOR YOUR DESK

George Washington and the Art of Business: The Leadership Principles of America's First Commander-in-Chief

By Mark McNeilly (Oxford University Press, $24.95)

OK, so Washington wasn't actually a businessman. He was one hell of a tactician, though, and it's his recorded abilities to persuade, seize opportunities, maintain self-discipline and learn from his numerous mistakes that McNeilly emphasizes. Part biography, part study in managerial style, this book compares the challenges faced by Washington with those that have confronted our modern business execs, sports stars and celebrities, and finds that even two centuries later, the administrative philosophies practiced by the father of our country are still worth following.

The Painter of Battles

By Arturo Pérez-Reverte (Random House, $25)

For two decades before he became a full-time novelist, Spanish author Pérez-Reverte (The Club Dumas) worked as a war journalist, covering conflicts in Bosnia, Lebanon and elsewhere. Those experiences inform this story about a veteran war photographer, Andres Faulques, who's retired to a crumbling watchtower on the Spanish coast, where he paints a gigantic mural on the theme of battles through the ages. One day, though, a former Croatian militiaman named Ivo Markovic arrives on his doorstep to announce his intention to kill Faulques. Turns out that a prize-winning photo he'd taken of Markovic helped local Serbs track down the Croat's family and kill them. The remarkable debate these two begin - about life, love, art and warfare - will determine the painter's fate.

Homo Politicus: The Strange and Scary Tribes That Run Our Government

By Dana Milbank (Doubleday, $26)

Washington Post political columnist Milbank calls his clever new book "a mock anthropology of Washington man" - and woman. It's really his opportunity to skewer the archetypal, often cartoonish characters who populate our nation's capital, whether they be Republican "super-lobbyist" Jack Abramoff, political fixer Karl Rove, or former investigative reporter Bob Woodward, all of whom, he contends, fit within arcane "tribal boundaries" familiar only to D.C. habitués. This book doesn't exactly inspire confidence in American governance, but it's a fine, bubble-bursting counterpoint to the no-story-too-small coverage of this year's presidential race.

The Exchange Artist: A Tale of High- Flying Speculation and America's First Banking Collapse

By Jane Kamensky (Viking, $29.95)

Spectacular American business frauds are as old as the republic itself. Kamensky, a Brandeis University history professor, recalls one of the earliest such schemes: Andrew Dexter Jr.'s plan, in the 1790s, to build Boston's Exchange Coffee House, then the tallest structure in the country, at seven stories. Pioneering the field of real-estate speculation and amassing a string of rural banks, Dexter exploited loose regulations regarding currency printing and used a paper fortune to finance his construction. However, his scam crumbled in 1809, just as his sumptuous tower was preparing to open, provoking the first U.S. bank failure. Kamensky interweaves this outrageous tale with that of Nathan Appleton, a New England merchant and politician who would make a career of fighting such swindles. A dramatic primer on the dark art of high-risk capitalism.

Death Was the Other Woman

By Linda L. Richards (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95)

Inspired by Effie Perrine, gumshoe Sam Spade's faithful secretary in The Maltese Falcon, British Columbia author Richards introduces Kitty Pangborn, the daughter of an industrialist, who, following his suicide, does the only smart thing she can in Depressionera Los Angeles: She gets a job. Her boss is private eye Dexter J. Theroux, who's too friendly with the booze and broads to do his job 100 percent and needs Kitty to keep his success rate up. But after the jealous mistress of a crooked businessman hires them to tail her lover, who's soon left dead in a bathtub, Kitty and Dex realize that they've got trouble in ... well, spades. A delightful homage to hard-boiled P.I. yarns.