Short Book Reviews: A Black Detective in Slave-Holding Texas

Lady of Perdition, by Barbara Hambly

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 17^th 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.