The Deadliest Deceptions (A Miriam Bat Isaac Mystery)
The Deadliest Deceptions is a collection of nine short stories in Trop’s Miriam bat Isaac mystery series set in Roman Alexandria, during Nero’s reign. Miriam and her friend Phoebe solve a range of crimes from gruesomely murderous and gritty to humorous. They take time to eat abundant meals of foods like flaming flamingo tongues. Trop takes to heart building her 1st century CE multi-cultural Egyptian setting in an immersive style, using the senses and many details. However, sometimes this enthusiastic world building can feel overdone, as in this descriptive passage in the story “Believing is Seeing:” “Under the pinpricks of light, a rush of air grazed the nape of my neck and rippled Phoebe’s Chinese silk outer tunic, puffed out the ruffle along the lower edge of her inner tunic, and lifted the wispy feathers of dark hair that shaded her brow. She giggled as she patted down her skirts with her dumpling-like hands.” In addition, repetition of descriptive phrases/passages between stories (such as “dumpling-like hands” above) is occasionally tiresome, but Trop portrays an entertaining sleuth at work in an enjoyably unusual historical place.
