Cold Bayou

July 2, 2018
Hambly’s solid 16th Benjamin January mystery (after 2017’s Murder in July) takes the freed slave and surgeon, in the summer of 1839, from New Orleans to Cold Bayou plantation, where he’s agreed to play the piano at the wedding of 67-year-old Veryl St.-Chinian, despite some ominous dreams he has experienced—and warnings from his voodoo savvy sister, Olympia, who tells him, “I see blood, brother.” Most of the guests disapprove of 18-year-old Ellie Trask, St.-Chinian’s illiterate fiancée with a scandalous past. After someone vandalizes the wedding dress and the minister goes missing, a worse tragedy further threatens the wedding—the slashing murder of Ellie’s shrewd maid, Valla. January investigates, suffering such travails as a foot injury, a violent flood, and a threat on his life in the process. Readers will learn a lot about the unique culture of antebellum Louisiana, such as clothing fashions, but some will be frustrated by descriptive passages that too often slow the narrative’s momentum. Agent: Frances Collin, Frances Collin Literary.

August 15, 2018
A rewardingly complex tale of murder in families related by blood and stratified by color in 1839 New Orleans.Benjamin January (Murder in July, 2017, etc.) is a Paris-trained physician and musician whose mother, Livia, was the mistress of a wealthy Creole man who'd purchased her as a slave and then freed her. His sister, Dominique, is the current mistress of Henri Viellard, a nephew of Veryl St-Chinian, an elderly Creole man with a large interest in many plantations who plans to marry a young Irish girl with a sordid past. January, who is dark-skinned, is asked to play at the wedding, to which many of his pale-complexioned relatives are invited. His sister Olympe, a voodooienne, warns him of danger at Cold Bayou, a remote, crumbling sugar plantation totally unsuited to housing wedding guests. Louisiana law requires every member of a family-owned property to agree on decisions. Because Veryl's bride, Ellie, would inherit his large share of the estate, his family is doing everything possible to stop the marriage. First a voodoo charm is found in Ellie's dress. Then the steamboat arrives without the priest but with Ellie's thuggish uncle, Mick Trask, accompanied by several bully boys. Things get worse. In an attempt to break up a fight, January falls from a balcony and breaks an ankle. Valla, Ellie's light-complexioned house slave, claims that Ellie's father loaned money to the man who used to own Livia and was never repaid, which would make Livia and her entire family slaves. Unremitting heat and humidity blanket the plantation, portending a storm as the squabbling families wait for the priest. January is caring for a man hurt in a duel when word arrives that Valla has been murdered. In the dark she could have been mistaken for her mistress, but whichever woman was the target, January knows that a black person will be blamed. When Trask seizes upon January as the culprit, he's shackled in a room as the plantation is flooded and must rely on others to gather clues and uncover the real killer.Another atmospheric, beautifully written mystery in which Hambly continues to explore the repugnant practice of classifying people by the color of their skin.

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August 1, 2018
The latest Benjamin January historical mystery, set in 1839, finds the former slave, who trained as a surgeon but makes his living playing and teaching piano in New Orleans?when he's not solving crimes?invited to play at a wedding. He's reluctant but takes the job. Soon, a body turns up on the Cold Bayou plantation, and January is accused of murder. Hambly's blending of actual history and fictional characters and events is as seamless as always; she layers on enough period flavor to make the story feel real but never slows the narrative with extraneous details. Another solid entry in this popular series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)