Blue Cat Library offers the complete Infamies.

These concise notebooks on Arthashastran wickedness in public and private life are credited to an obscure Latin rake known only as “St. Valentine”, burning out in the moral forest fire of the late 70s San Francisco bathhouse era.

The Infamies explore a unique, accessible vein in principles of power and control, deceit and manipulation, worldliness and otherworldliness, evoking the long-aphorism thread in practical philosophy running from Arthashastra through points like Machiavelli, Gracian, the French moralists, and Nietzsche. Submotifs include little-known Persian and mathematical eccentricities.

A truncated, unauthorized edition circulated during the confusing weeks following Valentine’s arrest for a series of grisly Silicon Valley murders, but all trace of it vanished during the media blackout which accompanied his unexpected release. He was said to have been under investigation for technology transfer when he died of AIDS in 1986.

The notebooks were proven prophetic by the mendacious wars that swarmed out of Washington in the early 21st century, and remain a shrewd bet for anyone concerned about the rise of the toxic avatar in the era of social media.


Hardback, 154pp, or ebook, with a brief preface by JM.