It’s not safe to give you my name; just know me as the wife of Pytheus. My husband was one of the three men who, during the spring of the seventh year of the Reign of Nero, broke into the Temple of Artemis, made off with a king’s ransom in gems, and escaped on the Thalia to Alexandria.

I grew up in Roman-occupied Alexandria in a tenement near the waterfront of the Great Harbor, but my parents were from Tarsus. After my father was injured loading sacks of grain onto a ship bound for Rome, he brought my mother and me back to Tarsus so we could stay with his brother. There I lived until I married Pytheus, whereupon my husband and I moved to the commercial district of Ephesus so he would have a chance to get work in the warehouses lining the quays there.

But it’s the day of the Festival of Artemis that I want to tell you about, when the statue of the goddess is carried with great solemnity through the city. Tourists and Ephesians alike take their place either in the procession or along the way until it’s time to follow the priests to the Temple for the sacrifice.

Pytheus and I got separated in the crush as the priests were carrying the sacred statue through the city. Wrapped in the clamor of the festival and driven by the throng, I could not, despite my efforts, find him. Once I thought I saw him, but a moment later he disappeared in a plume of dust. So, I assumed I’d meet up with him at the Temple or, if not there, then at home.

But of course, I never did.

It didn’t take me long to realize he must have been involved in the jewel heist and fled on the Thalia, the ship that left so suddenly for Alexandria. Pytheus was by nature suspicious and secretive, and all he ever dreamed of was having easy money. Instead his life consisted of one intrigue after another and then running from the consequences. Sometimes he’d come home with unexplained cash, but that only honed his greed and fueled even more bitterness for the possessions others acquired. So, I knew what must have happened when he didn’t come home.

Fearing my landlord would sic the slavers on me to recover the unpaid rent, I took what little I had and booked passage straight away on the next ship to Alexandria. Setting out to find him, I asked for him first among the sailors, roustabouts, and deckhands and then at the various inns, cook-shops, and saloons. At first, he seemed happy to see me. He told me we were rich, that he’d come by a one-third share of the loot from the Temple of Artemis, which he’d fence when the time was right, and in the meantime, we’d live modestly.

Later, he told me about his accomplices in the heist: the captain of the Thalia and another scoundrel who was posing as a scholar of Greek culture to court the daughter of a rabbi. Little did I know my husband’s next scheme would be to seize their shares as well. I cannot explain his devilish plan here, but you will draw in a quick breath when it unfolds in The Deadliest Thief.

Giveaway: Leave a comment below for your chance to win a digital copy of The Deadliest Thief, limited to U.S. residents. Giveaway ends March 9, 2020. Good luck everyone!

The Deadliest Thief is the fifth book in the “Miriam bat Isaac” historical mystery series, released October 26, 2019.

Miriam bat Isaac, a budding alchemist and amateur sleuth in first-century CE Alexandria, becomes frantic when her best friend, Phoebe, is kidnapped. At the same time, a brute of a man is stalking Nathaniel ben Ruben, an itinerant potbellied dwarf. Could this brute, the last surviving jewel thief from the Temple of Artemis, be the same man who has kidnapped Phoebe?

Let The Deadliest Thief take you into the underbelly of first-century CE Roman-occupied Alexandria to help Miriam solve her most baffling case yet.

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About the author
An associate professor emerita at the State University of New York, June is either working out at the gym or researching and writing The Miriam bat Isaac Mystery Series, which is set in first-century CE Roman Alexandria. Her books have won various awards including a Readers’ Choice Award, a Readers’ Favorite Award, and honorable mention for fiction at the 2016 New York Book Festival. The first of the five books in the series, The Deadliest Lie, was selected as one of the nine most riveting mysteries set in the distant past.

June lives with her husband Paul Zuckerman in New Paltz, NY where she is breathlessly recording her plucky heroine’s next life-or-death exploit. Visit her website at JuneTrop.com.

All comments are welcomed.