June Trop - The Deadliest Returns

08/15/24 • 24 min

All Things Must Pass : Historical Fiction Podcast

Uncover the guilty longings, secrets, lies, and evil deeds of others as you escape to the Roman Empire, its splendor as well as its seedy underbelly. Can Miriam’s brother, the renowned gladiator, return home in secret after allegedly having been killed in the amphitheater in Pompeii? Can Miriam help her returning friend, who fled the arms of Roman law, discover the fate of his love child? And can Miriam, after sailing to Ephesus to return the city’s black pearl, trace the mystical jewel after its disappearance? If you cannot help her, then at least get away to that first-century CE world of rip-roaring adventure for which we all long.

Returning, whether it means going back or giving back, is never easy, at least not in this volume of three Miriam bat Isaac novelettes: In the first story, “The Bodyguard,” Miriam’s twin brother returns from the dead to serve as a bodyguard to the son of a legionnaire. In the second story, “The Beggar”, an old man disguised as a matronly beggar, returns to Alexandria to find the lovechild he left behind. In the third story, “The Black Pearl,” Miriam sails to Ephesus to return the city’s black pearl, only to have it disappear. If, like Miriam, you thrive on uncovering the guilty longings, secrets, lies, and evil deeds of others, then let her take you through the shrill parade of macabre creatures she confronts in these stories.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Henry Rozycki - Walk the Earth as Brothers: A Novel

Two Jewish brothers plan futures full of achievement and maybe fame. But Warsaw in the summer of 1939 is no place for dreamers.

Ian is thrown west to Paris. There, he unexpectedly falls in love with Alicia, a mysterious Frenchwoman, but then must leave her to race across France to safety in Casablanca. Daniel ends up in the Siberian Gulag, where he faces blizzards, starvation, and the often-lethal cruelties of guards and fellow prisoners. He too finds someone, an exiled poet named Nadhya, until he must choose: stay with her or cross all of Russia to return to the future he'd envisioned.

Walk the Earth as Brothers is the story of two pawns in a titanic world war, of bravery, random chance, kindness, betrayal and love, and of what happens to the hopes and dreams of Ian and Daniel.

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Next Episode

Matt Cost - City Gone Askew

Award-winning author Matt Cost brings us back to Brooklyn in the Roaring ’20s and Hungarian private eye, 8 Ballo, who is hired by Theda Lazar Vogel to prove that her husband was murdered. His colorful cast of friends returns, as well as legendary figures such as Dorothy Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Bugsy Siegel, and Lucky Luciano.

8 discovers that a priceless Aquila—an ancient eagle Roman standard carried into battle 2,000 years ago—was stolen from Karl Vogel when he was killed. This provides ties to a secret German organization known as the Batavi. But Vogel was also involved in the eugenics movement centered in Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, as well as being involved with the Ku Klux Klan.

As 8 peels back layers of the underbelly of 1920s Brooklyn, the more complicated and dangerous it becomes for him and those who are important to him. What is happening at Cold Spring Harbor with Herman Wall and the eugenics movement? Who are the mysterious Germans threatening 8? And what is the identity of the charismatic Grand Cyclops? 8 must race against time to uncover the truth and put a stop to the most chilling triumvirate ever conceived.

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