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Overview: Barbara Hambly, though a native of Southern California, lived in New Orleans for many years while married to the late science fiction writer George Alec Effinger. Hambly holds a degree in medieval history from the University of California and has written novels in numerous genres.
Genre: Fiction > Mystery/Thriller
Book #13 – Crimson Angel
Benjamin January is forced to travel to Haiti to seek his family’s lost treasure, in order to save everything he holds dear
When Jefferson Vitrack – the white half-brother of Benjamin January’s wife – turns up on January’s doorstep in the summer of 1838 claiming he has discovered a clue to the whereabouts of the family’s lost treasure, January has no hesitation about refusing to help look for it. For the treasure lies in Haiti, the island that was once France’s most profitable colony – until the blood-chilling repression practiced there by the whites upon their slaves triggered a savage rebellion. The world’s only Black Republic still looks with murderous mistrust upon any strangers who might set foot there, and January is in no hurry to go.
But when Vitrack is murdered, and attempts are made on January’s wife and himself, he understands that he has no choice. He must seek the treasure himself, to draw the unknown killers into the open, a bloody trail that leads first to Cuba, then to Haiti, and finally to the secret that lies buried with the accursed gold.
Book #14 – Drinking Gourd
Benjamin January investigates the murder of a ‘conductor’ of the Underground Railway, helping slaves to freedom.
Benjamin January is called up to Vicksburg, deep in cotton-plantation country, to help a wounded “conductor” of the Underground Railroad – the secret network of safe-houses that guide escaping slaves to freedom. When the chief “conductor” of the “station” is found murdered, Jubal Cain – the coordinator of the whole Railroad system in Mississippi – is accused of the crime. Since Cain can’t expose the nature of his involvement in the railroad, January has to step in and find the true killer, before their covers are blown.
As January probes into the murky labyrinth of slaves, slave-holders, the fugitives who follow the “drinking gourd” north to freedom and those who help them on their way, he discovers that there is more to the situation than meets the eye, and that sometimes there are no easy answers.
Book #15 – Murder in July
Benjamin January investigates the murder of a mysterious Englishman in this absorbing New Orleans-set mystery.
When British spymaster Sir John Oldmixton offers Benjamin January a hundred dollars to find the murderer of an Englishman whose body has been found floating in the New Basin Canal, Benjamin turns him down immediately. As a free man of colour in New Orleans in the sweltering July of 1839, he knows this is not something he should get mixed up in.
But when clues to the dead man’s identity link the death to another murder, in another July in January’s past, he is reluctantly drawn into the investigation. Nine years ago in Paris he failed to catch a killer – with tragic consequences. Now in New Orleans he must unravel the earlier murder, the one that took place during the great revolt against the Bourbon kings, to solve the second killing. At stake is not merely a hundred dollars, but hidden treasure, the fate of an innocent woman – and the lives of January’s wife, son and unborn child.
Book #18 – House of the Patriarch
No one can talk to the dead . . . can they? Free man of color Benjamin January gets caught up in a strange, spiritual world that might lead to his own demise, as he hunts for a missing teenager in this gripping, atmospheric historical mystery.
New Orleans, 1840. Freshly home from a dangerous journey, that last thing Benjamin January wants to do is leave his wife and young sons again. But when old friends Henri and Chloe Viellard ask for his help tracking down a missing girl in distant New York, he can’t say no.
Three weeks ago, seventeen-year-old Eve Russell boarded a steam-boat – and never got off it. Mrs Russell is adamant Eve’s been kidnapped, but how could someone remove a teenager from a crowded deck in broad daylight? And why would anyone target Eve?
The answer lies in New York, a hotbed of new religions and beliefs, of human circuses and freak shows . . . and of blackbirders, who’ll use any opportunity to kidnap a free man of color and sell him into slavery. January’s determined to uncover the truth, but will he ever be able to return to New Orleans to share it?
Book #20 – The Nubian’s Curse
A cursed statue . . . A haunted house . . . A seemingly supernatural death . . . The unexpected arrival of a friend from his past plunges musician, sleuth and free man of color Benjamin January into an old, unsolved case in this historical mystery set in New Orleans
December 1840. Surgeon turned piano-player Benjamin January is looking forward to a peaceful holiday with his family. But the arrival of an old friend brings unexpected news – and unexpected danger.
Persephone Jondrette has found Arithmus: a Sudanese man with extraordinary mental abilities who January last saw in France, nearly fifteen years ago, during a ghost-hunting expedition to a haunted chateau. January and his friends survived the experience . . . but Arithmus’ benefactor, the British explorer Deverel Wishart, did not. He was discovered dead one morning, his face twisted in horror, and shortly afterwards Arithmus vanished, never to be seen again.
Did Deverel succumb to the chateau’s ghosts – or did Arithmus murder him and run away? January is determined to uncover the truth about the tragic incident from his past, and clear his old friend’s name – but even he isn’t prepared for what happens next . . .
The Nubian’s Curse by NYT-bestselling author Barbara Hambly is the latest instalment of the critically acclaimed historical mystery series featuring talented amateur sleuth and free man of color, Benjamin January.
Download Instructions:
Books #13-15, #18
https://ouo.io/jhyVFY8
https://ouo.io/oGbFD2
Book #20 – The Nubian’s Curse
https://ouo.io/eV1Da8
https://ouo.io/UtoRhk.
