A new Benjamin January novel is an occasion of delight. I’ve loved the series since the very first volume, Free Man of Color. In pre-Civil War New Orleans, the French-influenced culture viewed race in a very different, nuanced way than their slave-holding American neighbors to the north. Benjamin, born a slave of an African father, has studied medicine in Paris, yet finds the only way to earn a living in the New World is as a pianist at balls and other social events. This, of course, is the perfect combination of skills with which to solve a murder. Now, many mysteries and adventures later, he’s married, with connections in both the white and the many gradations of colored communities. When a spoiled, rebellious young student at his wife’s school runs off with a man of dubious character and even more problematic intentions, Ben goes after her, ably assisted by his white friends, a Yankee lawman and a consumptive, classically educated fiddler.

As Ben feared, the girl has been sold into slavery, then beaten and raped into submission. Getting her free will be tough enough, but she’s been taken into the Republic of Texas, which which prides itself on being a slave-holding nation. Ben himself is now at risk of being captured and claimed as a slave, for papers can be destroyed as easily as they can be forged. Texas itself is in turmoil, with those who want to join the US coming to (literal) blows with those who want to remain independent. In an escapade based on historical incident, one party steals the official State Archives.

That’s just the initial set-up, the action that gets him and his friends to Texas. Once there, he runs into an old nemesis, Valentina de Castellón, now Valentina Taggart (from Days of the Dead), who lands in a serious mess when her rancher husband is found murdered and she is the most likely suspect. Her husband’s family wants the title to her land rights, inherited from an original Spanish land grant, and her allies are few, so she turns to Ben as a skilled detective, able to gather information from “invisible” witnesses, such as servants and slaves.

Hambly effortlessly weaves vibrant characters, dramatic tension, and history – with all its quirks and dangers – into a murder mystery. This is the 17th Benjamin January adventure, and like its predecessors, it stands well on its own. The series remains fresh and captivating as American history and social history unfold into a panorama that informs and shapes each new mystery. Reading Lady of Perdition makes me want to get the previous stories off the bookshelf and reread them all.

In 1840, Benjamin January, a freed black man, leaves the safety of his New Orleans home for the perils of the “Slaveholder’s Republic” of Texas in search of his former pupil, Selina. She has been kidnapped by a ruffian and was likely sold into slavery. Ben is not an ordinary man; he has been educated as a physician in France and is a music teacher. A fellow musician, Sefton, accompanies him. Attempting to blend in with the locals, Ben acts as Sefton’s valet. Another friend, Shaw, an aggressive white policeman, also joins the rescue party. In Texas, they are assisted by Valentina, the Rancho Perdition’s owner’s wife, but get involved in another mystery—the murder of Valentina’s husband. There the group encounters not only bandits, hitmen, and general lawlessness but also the political intrigues of that period between the American unionists and non-unionists, irritated Mexicans, rancorous Comanches, and others, particularly Valentina’s in-laws.

In this seventeenth offering of the Benjamin January Mystery series, Barbara Hambly has generally succeeded in making it a standalone novel. While she presents minimal backstory on the characters from the previous books, the narrative focuses on the conditions in Texas during the 1840s. The turmoil is aptly shown by the individuals’ actions, their beliefs, and their allegiance to various political causes. Ben’s steely resolution (the backbone of this series) is again fittingly demonstrated when he acts as a black servant and deals with abuse from others. We feel his (and others’ in similar situations) pain and mental anguish. While murders, rapes, thefts, and violence were commonplace in that era, their inclusion in this novel into a twin mystery is made compelling by the addition of the historical details, and the exposition of the plight of the unfortunate, the black population, and particularly the treatment of women. Highly recommended.

This review first appeared in the HNR Magazine Issue 91 (February 2020)

I like Barbara Hambly and I like this series. This is an excellent instalment and it kept me hooked till the last page.
I love the world building, the character development and the well crafted plot.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to Severn House and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Lady of Perdition is the 17th (!!) Benjamin January novel by Barbara Hambly. Due out 7th Jan 2020 from Severn House, it's 256 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats (ebook available now).

These books are superbly well written. The author manages to convey the very real peril of living as a person of color in the southern USA in the 1840s. Despite being a European trained physician and gifted musician, Dr. January is continually at risk of being kidnapped and forced into slavery. In this installment, January, along with his loyal friends Abishag Shaw and Hannibal Sefton venture deep into Texas to try to rescue a young kidnapped girl, a student of his wife's girls' school.

This book works well as a standalone, the mystery (less of a murder mystery and more of a 'how will they get out of this alive') and parallel plots work very well without previous familiarity with the series. I do recommend reading the series, however, for the consistently high quality of the plotting and characterizations as well as the meticulous historical research. The books are full of the casual racist and sexist violence which was endemic to that part of the world, and they could have been relentlessly depressing. The author manages to imbue the characters with nobility, grit, purpose, honesty, and even a touch of humor and whimsy (especially Hannibal and Rose, whom I adore).

I love these books and truly look forward to every installment with anticipation.

Five stars for this one, and five stars for the series.

An unusual hero and setting makes this a great read, especially for those interested in the state of race relations in 1840s Texas. Benjamin January is a free man and he's safe in New Orleans, but not in Texas where he goes to rescue Selina, who has been kidnapped and made a slave. Luckily, he has good friends in Hannibal Sefton and Abishag Shaw, white men who are willing to travel with him and help with his quest. Once in Texas, January finds himself wrapped into an odd and difficult situation involving Valentina, who is accused of killing her husband. Although you can be sure that Selina will be saved, the mystery involving Valentina is more complicated. This is a well written and interesting historical mystery that I found informative as well. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Don't worry of you haven't read the earlier books, this is fine as a standalone.

This 17th entry in the Benjamin January series sees the good doctor and man of color traveling to Texas to save a former student from slavery. He risks his neck in process. Hambly is expert at dropping the reader into the times with details of the period, but her intricate plot and lush storytelling are the real stars of her work. Lady of Perdition fulfills the promise of her previous books.

Another great title in the Benjamin January series. And yes, you can read this as a stand-alone, although knowing the characters from previous novels does add a layer of enjoyment. Central to this series is the portrayal of people of color and women in a period of history that was fraught with dangers for both groups. As a free person of color, January is constantly in danger of being seized and sold into slavery if he leaves the city of New Orleans and immediate environs. Thus, when he goes to the rescue of a young woman who has been seduced, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in Texas, January is accompanied by his friends Hannibal Sefton, who will pretend to be January's master, and Abishag Shaw, a white New Orleans policeman.

Although January and company find and rescue the young woman, January and Sefton then become involved in the case of another woman who is accused of killing her husband.

I find that the mystery element of the novels in this series, while enjoyable, is never as compelling as the characters and the manner in which they are required to manipulate circumstances in order to survive. I really would like to see this series of novels become a PBS series.

"Lady of Perdition" is the 17th in Barbara Hambly's brilliant historical New Orleans series that started with "A Free Man of Color". It stars Benjamin January, a physician, musician and ex-slave. Ben was brought up on a plantation and freed after his master had him educated. He trained as a surgeon in France, and lived there for 16 years. He returned to New Orleans after the death of his Berber wife because he had family there.

At this stage in the series, Ben is married to Rose, a schoolteacher who shares his love of books. The episode opens in April, 1840, taking our hero out of the city and into extreme danger in Texas, the 'Slaveholders' Republic'. A con man has charmed his former pupil Selina Bellinger, who ran off with him - to be sold into slavery.

Ben, his consumptive fellow musician and friend Hannibal, and rough Yankee policeman Abishag Shaw accompany him, sharing a variety of perilous escapades. Don't miss this excellent series.

Lady of Perdition does a very good job of being exactly what it is: one volume in a mystery series that simultaneously offers a puzzle that needs solving and a glimpse of life in a particular historical moment. The puzzle(s) (actually, there are two of them) aren’t particularly compelling, but the context the author sets them in makes for engrossing reading. The dcentral character, Benjamin January, is a free black man living in New Orleans in 1840, but he finds himself in the Republic of Texas, also known as the “Slaveholders’ Republic.” January continually walks a fine line—he can’t appear too intelligent, to independent, too anything. And he knows that he could easily be abducted and sold into slavery—free papers are easy enough to burn if a potential slave merchant has the financial motivation. We see a place and a time full of tensions: between Catholics and Protestants, between free and enslaved Blacks, between women and the demands of the male-controlled world, between Mexicans and Texans.

This is a book that keeps one going because of the strength of its characters and the challenges they face because of their own identities, rather than by virtue of a particularly complex mystery. Read it for the picture it offers of the time, not for its central “mystery.”

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley.

Do not let the blurb on the back cover deter, you do not have to have read the other books in the series to understand what is going on in the book. While there are two non-central characters from other books in the series, a detailed back story is not given nor needed. Therefore, if you are new to the adventures of Ben January, you can start here and not be lost.

The book is at first a basic search and rescue Western as Ben, Hannibal, and Shaw struggle to save a young woman. This part of the novel is told with a great deal of vigor, and highlights the need for someone to produce a television series based on this excellent series. Hambly’s know ledge of history serves her in good stead, and the details of Texas before Union as well as the reactions of the characters. Things get complicated quickly and Ben and Hannibal find themselves at a center of a mystery involving an old acquittance and the death of her husband.

What makes the series so good is that Hambly captures the confront that Ben undoubtedly feels. He is an educated man who must pretend, time and again to be something other than what he is because he risks death. But it makes him more sympathetic to the nuances that exist in relationships, in particular to how those play out with women.

And that is what at the heart of the novel. It isn’t just Valentina who finds herself accused of murder, but also her in-laws and the young woman who is the original target of Ben’s quest. While the book addresses the lack of option available to women in the 1840s, much of the subject matter is also closely related to women of today and highlights aspects of the MeToo Movement. The plot directly addresses how different people, let alone genders, respond to and see rape. It is those different responses to sexual assaults -both on men and women (though the men get shorter shift in the book) as well as the long-lasting damage that such assaults can cause.

The book also works very well as a thriller western and is particularly gripping when it comes to the pursuits. The plot also makes good use of the historical Texas political situation, with the conflict of total independence or joining the United States. The use of historical detail and the humanness of the characters is a hallmark of this series.