Dead and Buried

I missed the last couple of Barbara Hambly's marvelous Benjamin January mystery novels and had been vaguely aware that the series had been dropped by its publisher.  It has been picked up again by Severn Books, which has brought out the ninth in the series, Dead and Buried (2010; no editor listed) in hardcover and trade paperback in the U.K. and U.S.

The series is set against the marvelously rich backdrop of 1830s New Orleans, with the remains of the old French/Spanish Creole culture and its lively parallel society of "free colored" residents, often closely related to the white families, resisting the increasing social and financial encroachment of Americans who see, literally, nothing but black and white, slave and master, and are slowly eroding the safety and social place of men like Benjamin January, a Paris-trained surgeon and free man of color who makes his living as a musician and music teacher.  As a professional pianist, January has an observer's access to everywhere from the highest levels of white society to the quadroon balls where white men seek mixed-blood placées (mistresses) to the fanciest of brothels.  But it's at a funeral that the latest mystery begins, as the burial of a member of a Free Colored Militia and Burial Society is interrupted when the coffin falls open and a white man's corpse tumbles out.  That man turns out to have been a wealthy Irish visitor, Patrick Derryhick, who is traveling in the company of the young Viscount Foxford, along with Foxford's Uncle Diogenes and his man of business, Caius Droudge.  Foxford stands to inherit all of Derryhick's wealth, so when the dead man's bloody pocket watch is found under his bed, he is promptly arrested for murder.

While January, as a member of the Burial Society, is concerned with the missing corpse, the legal troubles of Foxford would be of no interest if it weren't that Derryhick turns out to have been an old friend of January's fellow musician Hannibal Sefton, who also knew Foxford many years ago and insists that he could not be the killer.  So January finds himself in the unusual position of trying to clear a white man of murder and sort out the connections between Foxford, the quarrelsome Lord Montague Blessinghurst, and the young Creole beauty Isobel Deschamps.  Using his regular gig as a pianist in the high-class brothel of "Countess Mazzini" -- actually a mixed-race woman posing as Italian -- and his connections among the free colored middle class as well as the demimonde of the placées to observe and gather gossip, January also becomes suspicious of the young banker Martin Quennell, the white half-brother of the mixed-race undertaker, who seems to have considerably more money than any young banker should.  Quite a few long-buried secrets come to light, as it turns out Countess Mazzini is not the only person passing for something she is not.

In some ways this book harks back to the very first in the series, A Free Man of Color, with appearances by early series characters Augustus and Madeleine Mayerling (though their own secret remains unmentioned here) and an expedition out of New Orleans into the countryside where January risks being illegally enslaved, which is a regular set-piece in the series that makes sense within the plot but after being used so often fails to deliver much suspense.  While the series no longer feels quite as fresh as it was eight books ago, Hambly creates a satisfyingly layered mystery with a clever set of parallels among her various social groups, and the meticulously correct detail of the historical setting remains as colorful and intriguing as ever.

I recommend this book and the entire series for anyone who enjoys a good historical mystery.  Having read previous books in the series will help keep track of the sizable cast of characters and add appreciation of some of the non-plot-critical bits, but I think there's enough background given to jump into the series with this book if necessary.  There are also a couple of short stories in the series, "Libre" and "There Shall Your Heart Be Also," available (for a small price) on Hambly's website if you want a taste of the series before diving into a novel.

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Comments

[AJ]

Awesome! The last book felt kind of like it was wrapping the series up, so I'm glad to hear there's another one. I'll have to pick it up :)

[Mary Aileen]

I thoroughly enjoyed the first several books in this series, but eventually got tired of them and stopped. I'm glad to hear that Hambly found a new publisher, however.

The Severn books I've read all seemed to need more editing than they got (mainly tightening up, I think). Did you find that to be true at all with this one?

[Susan de Guardiola]

No, I thought it was well enough edited. The formulaic bits of the series, like the inevitable dangerous trip outside the city's borders, are starting to get a little obvious. And the concept is just not as fresh and original as it was eight books ago; that's unavoidable. But I didn't have any problem with the storytelling itself.

[Clifton]

I like all of her fantasy writing. (Well to be more honest, I like some of it, and totally *love* the rest.) I haven't read any of this series. Should I?

I'm not usually much of a mystery or historical fiction reader, but maybe I should be making more of an exception for these.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Clifton: I like most of what I've read of her fantasy writing, though the "Sisters of the Raven" stuff left me cold and I got tired of her Dragonsbane books. I really love the Darwath stuff, the Sun Wolf and Starhawk, and the Windrose Chronicles.

1830s New Orleans is a different enough world with an unusual enough society that it works for me almost like F&SF -- these people may be human, but their world and customs are alien from a modern perspective, and fascinating. Hambly's a historian by trade, so she creates a very rich milieu here. The mystery part is almost secondary for me, though I do enjoy a good mystery. But I'm reading these more for the atmosphere and the fascinating society than for the detective element.

So I'd say give the first one a try and see if you like it for those reasons.

Now I'm thinking it would be fascinating to write up that society as if it were science fiction and the people aliens. Hmm.