Juliette Benzoni brings back to life her favourite hero, Aldo Morosini, a Venetian prince specialising in antique jewellery, a detective in his spare time and a patent seducer. Serial murders, exhumed corpses and haunted houses: all the sadistic ingredients dear to Dame Juliette are here. Enough to give you a few sleepless nights of happiness. V.M

 

If Aldo Morosini - Venetian prince and international jewellery expert - thinks he's done with the adventures, he's wrong. One evening, in Jerusalem, where he is continuing his honeymoon with his young wife Lisa, a adolescent brings him a letter from a synagogue dignitary who asks him for a few moments of discreet conversation.

In the heart of David's ancient city, he encounters Abner Goldberg. The latter tells him that the High Priest of the Temple carried two similar emeralds in a silk bag, the "sacred spells". Legend has it that Jehovah himself gave them to the prophet Elijah, and that they ensure the power of clairvoyance and prophecy. Goldberg wants Morosini to search for these stones that have disappeared from the sack of Jerusalem.

Morosini refuses: he wants to devote himself solely to his young wife and his own affairs. Goldberg lets him go, but when Aldo gets to the hotel, Lisa's missing. A letter informs him of the blackmail: that he has to find the emeralds without warning any authority, if not, Lisa's life is at stake. All that remains for Morosini to do now is to accept the mission. The quest he undertakes obliges him to trace the history of emeralds, which have left bloody traces everywhere. From Jerusalem to Istanbul, Dijon, Prague, Romania, Germany and Ticino, Morosini goes from discovery to surprise, amidst the most unpredictable dangers and traps.


A ma fille Anne ma première et si précieuse lectrice.Tendrement ℐℬ
To my daughter Anne, my first and most precious reader.Tenderly

« The Emeralds of the Prophet cross borders and travel back in time at full speed. Served by an imaginary galloping.... From one saga to another, Juliette Benzoni's work continues the tradition of Eugène Sue. A happy author like his characters »

~ Review Jean-Babiste Michel ~ [in l'Express]

(...) It is with unmixed pleasure that we are drawn back into her novelistic universe of mystery, crowned heads, palaces, action, violence, suspense, feelings, emotion and also a touch of esotericism and fantasy".

~ Robert Penavayre ~ [La Croix du Midi]

Curses, forgotten treasures, murders and a hectic pace all come together in this new opus, which will delight Benzoni devotees and may well hook you too.

~ Belle ~

►French Editions :
The adventures of Aldo Morosini have been published several times by different French publishers - here are a few of them.

Editions : France Loisirs 2000, Pocket 2000, Éditions Rétrouvées 2015...


 

The « Regent », a huge pearl topped with diamonds, was bought by Napoleon I for Marie-Louise, his second wife. One day, in 1887, the jewel left for Russia. Then, after having trimmed the Youssoupoff princesses, the pearl disappeared.

When the pearl reappeared in the late 1920s, it was during a kidnapping and murder. Prince Aldo Morosini, the Venetian antiquarian expert in historical jewels, has a hard task: to obey the legitimate owner, he must sell it. But a curious character who calls himself Napoleon VI decided to take it without paying and without worrying about the means used. The sale of the "Regent" triggered a tragedy and Morosini will have a lot of trouble getting rid of the pearl.

He finds himself forced to stake his life and happiness, through a fight in which strange women appear such as Mary Rasputin or Masha the Gypsy, and disturbing men such as a fabulously rich Maharajah who, under too attractive exterior, hides a sadistic cruelty...

Acknowledgements from Juliette Benzoni

In addition to guides, journals, biographies and other travel reports that I have been given the opportunity to consult, I would like to offer a special token of gratitude to the memory of two missing writers whom I have allowed myself to display :
  
Prince Félix Youssoupoff whose remarkable Memoirs have been of great help to me.
Novelist and theater author Francis de Croisset, whose travel books to Ceylon and India enchanted my adolescence.

In particular La Féerier cinghalaise and especially here, We have made a beautiful journey, charming and incredibly evocative anchors that under an apparent lightness raise many problems... To both of them : Thank you ℐℬ



to Vincent Meylan who introduced me to the Regent. With great thanks and affection...

Adventures and tragedies in the tormented Europe of the 20s, the cocktail is irresistible.

~ critique in Écho d'aujourd'hui ~

►French Editions :
The adventures of Aldo Morosini have been published several times by different French publishers - here are a few of them.



Editions : France Loisirs 2002, Pocket 2004, Kindle format Plon 2013...
 

Why did the Baroness of Ostel, in having her portrait painted by the great Boldini, ask him to adorn it with jewels that she had never owned? And to what afterthought did the painter obey in fulfilling such an unusual desire? Where do the earrings and the fabulous cross he reproduced after seeing them twice in tragic circumstances come from?

It is the succession of enigmas that Aldo Morosini, the Venetian prince expert in historical stones, will have to solve in order to help a poor young woman married to an despicable character.

In search of the jewellery that he soon discovers belonging to Bianca Capello, Morosini, on the trail of a sadistic assassin, crossed the Atlantic aboard the most prestigious liner of the time, the Ile-de-France, the quintessence of the decorative arts. He will meet useful people there, because this is the first time he has gone on a treasure hunt alone. Well... almost!


À Yagel et Patrick de Bourgues. Un affectueux clin d'oeil...ℐℬ
To Yagel and Patrick de Bourgues. An affectionate wink...ℐℬ



©Bestimage

►French Editions :
The adventures of Aldo Morosini have been published several times by different French publishers - here are a few of them.



Editions : France Loisirs 2004, Pocket & Ed. Retrouvées 2016

In the gardens of the Château de Versailles, the opening of the exhibition « Magic of a Queen », dedicated to Marie-Antoinette, gathers aristocrats and collectors. Among the guests, Aldo Morosini, Venetian prince and antique dealer, attracts all eyes. But the sumptuous reception is shattered by a strange crime: a man collapses, a black velvet carnival wolf planted in the back with the help of a dagger....

Does the disappearance of one of the jewels on display, a diamond teardrop, explain this murder? Why is the assassin signing his crimes with "The Queen's Avenger" ? Sensing that Queen Marie-Antoinette's tragic fate still haunts the walls of Versailles, Morosini decides to conduct the investigation. But, as the mystery deepens, the victims continue to fall, as if sacrificed to the memory of a queen who unleashed passions...

 
to Evelyne et Patrick Rebeyrol my dear Versaillais..

For the eighth time, Juliette Benzoni brings back to life her favourite hero, Aldo Morosini, a Venetian prince specialising in antique jewellery, a detective in his spare time and a skilled seducer (...) Serial murders, exhumed corpses and haunted houses: all the sadistic ingredients dear to Dame Juliette are here. Enough to give you a few sleepless nights of happiness.

~ Critique by Vincent Meylan ~ (Point de Vue)

►French Editions :
The adventures of Aldo Morosini have been published several times by different French publishers - here are a few of them.

Editions : France Loisirs 2007, Large Print V.D.B & Pocket 2007
 

Tenochtitlan - Mexico 1521, the Aztec Empire collapses. The last emperor Cuauhtemoc tortured revealed to Cortés, the conquistador, where the fabulous treasure is hidden. It was Montezuma's most precious treasure, the pledge of all happiness, once brought to the Aztec emperors by Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, the unknown God who came from beyond the Western Ocean. Sublime emeralds that have disappeared in the mists of time...

When they reappear in Paris and in the 20th century, it is on the occasion of the wedding of Gilles Vauxbrun, the great antiquarian of Place Vendôme and close friend of Aldo Morosini who will be his best man. The bride is a young Mexican woman from a large family and of rare beauty. However, the marriage suddenly turns into a nightmare, the fiancé disappears as well as the famous emeralds, forcing Morosini and his "almost brother" the Egyptologist Vidal-Pellicorne to embark on an adventure all the more worrying because it is difficult to know where the danger comes from. It is then that a race against time begins to save the great Parisian antique dealer.


to Alied-Béatrice du Bois Van der Poele My dear Belgian friend who has dedicated  her life to to the culture and distraction of her compatriots.

►French Editions :
The adventures of Aldo Morosini have been published several times by different French publishers - here are a few of them.

Editions : France Loisirs 2008, Large Print V.D.B & Pocket 2009

Cortés emeralds are not the result of my imagination. I only took the liberty of changing the shape of one of them for poetic reasons, just as I changed the name of the young wife of the last Aztec emperor.
These magnificent stones sank in the Bay of Algiers on the night of 24 October 1541, with the galley carrying the conquistador and his sons. They were rescued but lost their belongings, including the famous emeralds. Who knows if, with our modern means of investigation, they will not surface again one day or the other !
Note by Juliette Benzoni at the end of this Book.

Acknowledgments by Juliette Benzoni

To H.R.H. Prince Michael of Greece whose masterful book The Empress of Farewell provided me with precious details.
To Vincent Meylan for Queen's Jewelry.
To Patrick de Bourgues for his vital support.

To all those who have contributed to this book A very huge thank you ! ℐℬ
 

10. The Ring of Atlantis 2009

What is this ring that an old man beaten to death and stripped of his clothes confides to Aldo Morosini in a street in Venice at night' A few words in a last breath evoking Egypt. However, it could be a jewel from the legendary Atlantis....

While the police investigation leads nowhere, someone comes to claim the dead man, an Egyptian diplomat. But Morosini disliked the questions he asked and rejected him. And everything could stop there, if, at some point, he did not receive an invitation to go to Cairo to deal with a delicate matter with an ex-wife of King Fouad. He accepts all the more willingly as he is bored and hopes to meet his friend Vidal-Pellicorne there who is digging around the Nile. Everything will then get tangled up and even turn into a nightmare when blood flows about a legend: that of the Unknown Queen who would have ruled Egypt, then colony of Atlantis, at the time of the cataclysm when the mythical island is engulfed. His tomb would contain incredible treasures defended by a terrible curse that only the Ring can overcome... Therefore, all blows are allowed !



►Note by Juliette Benzoni in this Book

« A detail for my Readers »

The Ring of Atlantis, or the Atlantean Ring, still exists, I hope. Howard Carter, the discoverer of All-Ank-Amon's tomb, found it in the vicinity of Aswan in the tomb of a high priest named Jua. I kept the form of it but I allowed myself to change the material, in order to better start the novel. It belonged to a family in the 1970s whose name I do not believe I have the right to reveal.

►French Editions :
The adventures of Aldo Morosini have been published several times by different French publishers - here are a few of them.

Editions: France Loisirs 2009, Large Print V.D.B, Kindle Format Plon 2010 ...





« A slow-moving police investigation, twists and turns, bloodshed, all set in Egypt, where all the answers are waiting for us ! »
~ Critique in France Dimanche ~
 

►The names of the painters featured in the new editions by Plon

► Les Emeraudes du Prophète : L'Apparition by Gustave Moreau Musée du Louvre, Paris, DAG © photo R.M.N
► La perle de l'Empereur : la femme aux orchidées by Constantin Egorovich Makowsky
► Les « Larmes de Marie-Antoinette » : At the moment, I only have the France Loisirs edition, which I also really like.
► Le collier sacré de Montezuma : Painting by John Sargent © G. Clements/Corbis, Collier détail d'une peinture de G. Richmond © Christies Images/Bridgeman Giraudon
►L'Anneau d'Atlantide : Graphic creation : V-.Podevin, Odalisque, 1860, Tissier Ange. ©RMN/D Arnaudet



LITERARY ENCOUNTER

►in a videoconference (via ZOOM) organised by the international bookshop IL LIBRO in Milan, concerning Aldo Morosini's 10th adventure THE RING OF Atlantis, on 24 February 2021.

where we spontaneously got together and certainly contributed a great deal to the richness of the conversation. With my friend Frédérique from France, Claudia from New York and myself from Switzerland. But what surprised us was that they chose volume 10 and not the first Adventure 'L'étoile Bleue'...

Juliette Benzoni at her home in Saint-Mandé with a copy of :
« Le collier sacré de Montezuma »

~ creation & photos of the Petit Trianon © Linda Compagnoni Walther ~

Extract of « Les larmes de Marie-Antoinette »

Conversation between Adalbert Vidal-Pellicorne and Aldo Morosini

- Well, I'll be damned! I'm definitely finding it harder and harder to get to know the so-called weaker sex. !

- Which means you're getting old ... we're getting old," Aldo corrected with a grimace. Because if you want to get to the bottom of what I'm thinking, I'm exactly like you. ...
And he hastily lit another cigarette...
 

~ creation © Frédérique Aznag Zabée ~

The celebrated journalist and writer Vincent Meylan was a close friend of our beloved author. Juliette dedicated Aldo Morosini's sixth adventure, La perle de l'empereur (The Emperor's Pearl), to him » :

« to Vincent Meylan who introduced me to the Regent. With great thanks and affection... ℐℬ

Today, November 2016 I would like to introduce you to Vincent Meylan's new book « Christie's: The Jewellery Archives Revealed ». This book was written to celebrate the 250th anniversary of CHRISTIE'S, the world-renowned auction house specialising in precious stones and highly valuable jewellery. I'm sure Juliette would have been delighted.

I treated myself to this magnificent book and was particularly fascinated by one of the chapters:

« La Régente - The Most beautiful Pearl in the World »

 
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