Set in 1940, The Secret Guests speculates what would have happened if the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were sent to a remote stately home in Ireland to get away from the Blitz on London. When a dead body turns up, it takes every effort to uncover the truth and stop the girls’ identities coming to light. In this edition of Historical Fiction, Rob Weinberg talks to the Irish, Booker Prize-winning novelist John Banville about penning historical crime novels under the name of B.W. Black, and the endlessly challenging work of being a writer.
Up Next in Season 1
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🎧 The Conqueror
In the year AD312 Rome is teetering on the brink of war and Constantine's army is on the move. On the Rhine frontier, a Germanic pagan joins the Roman army as a spy, while in Rome itself the pious daughter of a senator finds her self caught in anti-Christian politics. In this edition of Historica...
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🎧 Queen Anne's Favourite: The Real Sa...
Sarah Churchill – Duchess of Marlborough – was the politically influential intimate and then, blackmailer of Queen Anne. Sarah Churchill was vividly brought to life in the film The Favourite, in which she was played by Rachel Weisz. But does the film do Sarah Churchill and Queen Anne justice? How...
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🎧 Champion: A German Boxer, a Jewish ...
On 7 November 1938, 17-year old Polish Jew Herschel Grynszpan shot a Nazi official dead at the German embassy in Paris. The repercussions triggered a calamity which has been called the opening act of the Holocaust. In the novel Champion, Grynszpan's life is intertwined with that of German boxer, ...