Cold Bayou by Barbara Hambly

Cold Bayou: A Benjamin January Historical Mystery by Barbara Hambly --- 250 pages

The sixteenth novel in Hambly's evocative mystery series set in antebellum New Orleans and following the adventures of Benjamin Janvier or January, a free man of color navigating the dangerous intersections of old French Creole society and the influx of rough and ready American frontiersmen.

Soon enough Benjamin January finds many reason to regret that he has agreed to play at the wedding of wealthy and eccentric old Creole landowner Veryl St-Chinian to Irish barmaid Ellie Trask, fifty years his junior and saddled with a notorious past and a conniving uncle. Veryl's family are furious; not just the white family but the "crocodile eggs" too --- the free colored mistresses and their children who are acknowledged in private but not in public. As the wedding guests gather at the isolated plantation of Cold Bayou where the marriage is to take place, the body of Ellie's slave, Valla, is discovered in the woods nearby and January himself is accused of the crime.

There's something for everyone here: an intricately plotted murder mystery; a dissection of the horrors perpetuated by America's original sin of racism, both white on black racism and even more invidious black on black racism; and a portrait of the complex ties that both blight and bond a family.

Barbara Hambly writes all kinds of fiction, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, mysteries, and historical fiction. Whatever the genre, her books are distinguished by meticulous research, attention to detail, and compelling characters. This is a series I recommend starting at the beginning and reading in sequence, as the stories build on each other. Reading Hambly is like virtual reality without the glasses: a total immersion experience. I usually wait for a Saturday when I have nothing else scheduled, because I know once I start I will not stop until I finish the book.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus.

Click HERE to read the review from The Fish Shelf Blog.

Drinking Gourd by Barbara Hambly

Drinking Guard: The New Benjamin January Novel by Barbara Hambly --- 248 pages

Another impossible-to-put-down historical mystery, number 14 in the Benjamin January series, by Barbara Hambly, featuring a free man of color in antebellum New Orleans.

In the sweltering summer of 1839, Ben and his wife Rose are still trying to recover from the bank crash precipitated by President Andrew Jackson in 1837. Ben has taken a job with a traveling minstrel show for $10 a week. He is accompanied by his friend and fellow musician Hannibal Sefton. Since Hannibal is white, with suitably forged papers, he can pose as Ben's owner on their travels. When $10 a week can support a family, and a prime field hand sells for $1500 on the auction block, the pretense that Hannibal is his master is Ben's only protection from the slave trade.

Just as the traveling show is quitting Natchez, Ben receives a message asking for help. Up river at Vicksburg, a black barber named Rex Ballou and a white preacher named Ezekias Drummond have partnered to help escaping slaves flee north on the Underground Railroad.  Now, this "station" on the railroad could be exposed because Rex Ballou has been shot when a roving patrol stumbled on a "cargo" of slaves he was leading to the next station. If Ballou's cover is blown, everyone involved will come under suspicion and be subject to bloody reprisals. He needs a doctor to help him get on his feet again quickly.

Then Ezekias Drummond is murdered, and Jubal Cain, the man secretly responsible for coordinating the whole railroad in Mississippi, is framed by a prominent local planter who thinks Cain is having an affair with his wife.  As Ben tries to sort through all the lies and deceptions to discover the even more terrible truth he is beginning to suspect, Hannibal is attacked. Without his "owner" to protect him, Ben must flee for his life into the trackless swamp land. Unless he can ensure Hannibal's survival and solve the murder, Ben knows he will never make it home to New Orleans and Rose.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Crimson Angel by Barbara Hambly

Crimson Angel: A Benjamin January Novel by Barbara Hambly --- 247 pages

The latest in Hambly's historical mystery series featuring Benjamin January, a free man of color struggling to earn a living for his family in antebellum New Orleans, is uncompromising in its portrayal of the rank injustice, hypocrisy and brutality that was entrenched in law and custom in early America. It was a time when slaves and females were legally chattel, to be disposed of entirely at the will of their masters or male guardians. With few exceptions, neither a slave nor a woman, no matter how grossly mistreated, could expect anyone to help them escape their abusers.

The mystery involves Ben, his wife Rose, and their friend the white fiddler Hannibal Sefton, in a desperate flight from New Orleans to Cuba to the island of Sante Domingue and the free black Republic of Haiti. They are searching for a legendary family treasure left behind when Rose's French great-grandfather fled the violent slave revolt of 1791 --- and for proof of a terrible family secret associated with the treasure that --- almost fifty years later --- has put Rose and Ben in peril of their lives.  

Hambly is an excellent writer and her Benjamin January novels expose parts of the American experience that are too often glossed over, and bring them vividly and unforgettably to life.

Click HERE and HERE for reviews of Crimson Angel.