Episode 69--yes, I'm juvenile enough to say "noice". Of course, I cannot miss the opportunity to capitalize on this moment. There will never be another 69th episode of this podcast.

And so today, you, my valued listener, are getting an all new story, one salacious enough to be worthy of this episode.

I first had this idea about 5 weeks ago, and thought how I could best honour this episode. Olive already has their own salacious story--episode 65. I thought, I don't have enough with Yoshiko. Yoshi should get their own salacious story, something involving espionage, I've been writing and researching a lot lately that takes place during WW2... The answer is staring me in the face. Salon Kitty. It practically writes itself.

This is one of those little historical tidbits that just occupies space in my brain. Salon Kitty was a famed high-class German brothel used as a spying operation by the SD. Well-known clients included Goebbels, Ribbentrop, Sepp Dietrich, Francisco Franco's brother-in-law, and Mussolini's son-in-law.

And so my resident spymaster, Yoshiko, the cross-dressing Manchurian quote-unquote princess... can they be roped into this somehow? Doing some research, the brothel opened in 1941 under SD management, and closed as the result of an Allied air raid in summer of 1942. The ultimate man in charge of the whole thing was Reinhard Heydrich, who also had something happen to him in 1942. Yoshiko, at this point, was under a travel ban--essentially a form of house arrest--in Fukuoka, Japan. Their Tianjin restaurant, which I speculate may have been an op, closed in 1939 after they were assailed by axe-wielding bandits, they alienated all their friends in the Japanese military, their former lover and CO, General Tada Hayao was contemplating assassinating them, and even their friends in the far right underground were no longer taking their calls; Yamaguchi Yoshiko, in her memoir, talks about how Toyama Mitsuru, chief of the Black Ocean Society, wouldn't speak to Kawashima. Kawashima had just met with Toyama, and their former suitor, Iwata Ainosuke, also the head of a far right secret society, as recently as 1935, for reasons unknown.

The Fukuoka period of Yoshiko's life has a whole lot of nothing going on, except that they were dating a young woman named Sonomoto Kotone, and they were filing false police reports for petty money-making schemes. So... it's perfect. 1942 coincides with the operation of the brothel, the rescinding of Yoshiko's travel ban, and a particular event in Reinhard Heydrich's life. I have a story.

Of course, it began as a short story, and then it ballooned into a full on novelette. It is 7 chapters and 15K words. But have no fear, the entire thing is being released today. No previews here, this is the full story. Moreover, the PDF is available in full on my website. With luck, I can premiere the paperback at the Sudbury Comiccon at the end of April. There will be more news on that in the coming weeks.

I should note that, of course, this episode is explicit.

Beneath Nevada by Isaac Fernandes - https://www.amazon.ca/Beneath-Nevada-Isaac-Fernandes/dp/B0G6VM2ZMP/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3J4PAXIQ7D402&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.TNutXab6N7ddzELo9-V4bagRl8hAtlYL22zR1nKpK9FSh-kPdp7zQav2JZLL0fXL_WxjPnewaJyIsu8IlXadtXcrT2ExNkvAa9E02rNzvkOv7bpywdjvUzoiPJgm0AoSefvWqapUK-Vm4EMn2wkiiE8A5S8p4KSz2YC3EPufljl7ZEruZ39y9qweMZfzZdU5.Gf0fgM-y4dVavW1n33kQhUwf-Bh-9cLZH6IbQUVZVIQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=beneath+nevada&qid=1771373987&sprefix=beneath+nevada%2Caps%2C136&sr=8-1

Jason Shannon is an indie Canadian author of science fiction and more. His seventh novel, Tiger Blues, is available now: “A plucky crew of mercenaries must keep a doomsday weapon from the Maoists in alt-history 1948 Tibet.”

Upcoming:

Courtice Book Bazaar Feb 28– IG @bookbazaarcanada

Stratford Comiccon Mar 29

Cambridge Comiccon Mar 30

Barrie Comiccon Apr 11

Sudbury Comiccon Apr 25

Huntsville Comiccon May 3

For a complete list of sources, see the PDF version on my website.