The Benjamin January Mysteries
Encyclopedia
The Benjamin January mysteries are a series of historical mysteries by Barbara Hambly
, set in and around New Orleans during the 1830s. The title character is a mixed-race former slave, who was trained as a surgeon but works primarily as a musician.
Novels in the series:
Short stories in the series:
New Orleans. He lived in France for many years, but returned to New Orleans when his first wife died.
Rose Vitrac: A schoolteacher, and eventually Benjamin's wife. She is mixed-race, and was never a slave.
Hannibal Sefton: Benjamin's friend and fellow musician. He is Anglo-Irish, and almost certainly from a noble or wealthy family. He has tuberculosis, and an addiction to laudanum
. He plays the fiddle.
Dominique 'Minou' Janvier: Benjamin's younger half-sister. She is the placee
of a wealthy white gentleman, Henry, and the daughter of another.
Olympe 'Olympia Snakebones' Corbier: Benjamin's younger sister (though older than Dominique). Also known as Olympia Snakebones, she is a locally prominent Voodoo practitioner, as well as a wife and mother. Both she and Benjamin were fathered by another slave before their mother became a placee. She was freed at the same time as her brother and mother.
Livia Janvier Levesquer: The mother of Benjamin, Olympe, and Dominique. She is a former placee, and now a minor land owner. She is half white, and extremely status-conscious. She was born a slave, and was freed along with her children when she became a placee.
Lieutenant Abishag Shaw: A policeman, originally from Kentucky, who is significantly smarter and better educated than he pretends to be.
Henri Viellard: The man that Dominique is the placee of, and eventually the father of her child.
Fever Season: During a cholera epidemic, Benjamin deals with a runaway slave girl, Cora, who is wanted for poisoning her master, Otis Redfern. The novel is based on a true, rather horrific historical incident.
Graveyard Dust: the third book in the series.
Sold Down the River: Benjamin pretends to be a slave again, to determine the source of a series of violent incidents on his former master's plantation.
Die upon a Kiss: the fifth book in the series. It involves the opera scene in New Orleans.
Wet Grave: The aging former placee of a pirate is killed under mysterious circumstances, and Benjamin and Rose find themselves caught up in the workings of someone else's plot, on the run in the bayous and marshes. Historical events involving pirates, including Jean Lafitte, are relevant to the plot. Benjamin and Rose marry at the end of the book.
Days of the Dead: In Mexico City, Hannibal has been falsely accused of poisoning the son of a prominent local landowner. Benjamin and Rose, at his request, come to find the true murderer amid a complicated tangle of relationships and suspects.
Dead Water: A great deal of money has been embezzled from the bank where Benjamin January and his wife Rose keep their money. To prevent the bank's collapse, and thus save Rose's school for colored girls, Benjamin, Rose, and Hannibal follow the embezzler on a steamboat to recover the stolen money. The embezzler's murder complicates matters greatly.
Dead and Buried: At a friend's funeral, Benjamin discovers a different body in the coffin—that of a white man that Hannibal recognizes.
Barbara Hambly
Barbara Hambly is an award-winning and prolific American novelist and screenwriter within the genres of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction...
, set in and around New Orleans during the 1830s. The title character is a mixed-race former slave, who was trained as a surgeon but works primarily as a musician.
Novels in the series:
- A Free Man of Color (1997)
- Fever Season (1998)
- Graveyard Dust (1999)
- Sold Down the River (2000)
- Die upon a Kiss (2001)
- Wet Grave (2002)
- Days of the Dead (2003)
- Dead Water (2004)
- Dead and Buried (2010)
- The Shirt On His Back (2011)
- Ran Away (Upcoming)
Short stories in the series:
- Libre (2006, short story in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, November 2006, Salute to New Orleans issue. Now available on Hambly's website.)
- There Shall Your Heart Be Also (2007, short story in New Orleans Noir. Now available on Hambly's website.)
- A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven (2010, short story starring Rose and Dominque and taking place while Ben is away in The Shirt On His Back. Now available on Hambly's website.)
Major reoccurring characters
Benjamin January: Mixed-race former slave, freed as a child by his mother's lover. He was trained in Paris as a surgeon, but works primarily as a piano player. He is very tall, and very dark-skinned, which is a significant impediment to his medical career in pre-Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
New Orleans. He lived in France for many years, but returned to New Orleans when his first wife died.
Rose Vitrac: A schoolteacher, and eventually Benjamin's wife. She is mixed-race, and was never a slave.
Hannibal Sefton: Benjamin's friend and fellow musician. He is Anglo-Irish, and almost certainly from a noble or wealthy family. He has tuberculosis, and an addiction to laudanum
Laudanum
Laudanum , also known as Tincture of Opium, is an alcoholic herbal preparation containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight ....
. He plays the fiddle.
Dominique 'Minou' Janvier: Benjamin's younger half-sister. She is the placee
Plaçage
Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in which white French and Spanish and later Creole men entered into the equivalent of common-law marriages with women of African, Indian and white Creole descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with"...
of a wealthy white gentleman, Henry, and the daughter of another.
Olympe 'Olympia Snakebones' Corbier: Benjamin's younger sister (though older than Dominique). Also known as Olympia Snakebones, she is a locally prominent Voodoo practitioner, as well as a wife and mother. Both she and Benjamin were fathered by another slave before their mother became a placee. She was freed at the same time as her brother and mother.
Livia Janvier Levesquer: The mother of Benjamin, Olympe, and Dominique. She is a former placee, and now a minor land owner. She is half white, and extremely status-conscious. She was born a slave, and was freed along with her children when she became a placee.
Lieutenant Abishag Shaw: A policeman, originally from Kentucky, who is significantly smarter and better educated than he pretends to be.
Henri Viellard: The man that Dominique is the placee of, and eventually the father of her child.
Book synopses
A Free Man of Color: Benjamin solves the murder of a placee named Angelique.Fever Season: During a cholera epidemic, Benjamin deals with a runaway slave girl, Cora, who is wanted for poisoning her master, Otis Redfern. The novel is based on a true, rather horrific historical incident.
Graveyard Dust: the third book in the series.
Sold Down the River: Benjamin pretends to be a slave again, to determine the source of a series of violent incidents on his former master's plantation.
Die upon a Kiss: the fifth book in the series. It involves the opera scene in New Orleans.
Wet Grave: The aging former placee of a pirate is killed under mysterious circumstances, and Benjamin and Rose find themselves caught up in the workings of someone else's plot, on the run in the bayous and marshes. Historical events involving pirates, including Jean Lafitte, are relevant to the plot. Benjamin and Rose marry at the end of the book.
Days of the Dead: In Mexico City, Hannibal has been falsely accused of poisoning the son of a prominent local landowner. Benjamin and Rose, at his request, come to find the true murderer amid a complicated tangle of relationships and suspects.
Dead Water: A great deal of money has been embezzled from the bank where Benjamin January and his wife Rose keep their money. To prevent the bank's collapse, and thus save Rose's school for colored girls, Benjamin, Rose, and Hannibal follow the embezzler on a steamboat to recover the stolen money. The embezzler's murder complicates matters greatly.
Dead and Buried: At a friend's funeral, Benjamin discovers a different body in the coffin—that of a white man that Hannibal recognizes.