I apologize for misnumbering some of the previous novels. Dead Water is the eighth not the
ninth novel in Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series.
In Dead and Buried, the ninth
novel in the series, Hambly inserts a disclaimer of sorts
at the end of the book: “It is not the purpose of this novel to explore the
origins and ramifications—political, social, and psychological—of race-based
chattel slavery in the United States, nor the entangled and tragic system of
prejudice and laws that made up the one-drop rule….” Though she doesn’t explore
the origins of the rule, she certainly explores the social ramifications it had
on individuals and families, and, as a good storyteller should, does so in an
entertaining way. To say more about the theme of Dead and Buried might
spoil your enjoyment, so I will not discuss the theme, except to say that
Hambly handles it very well.
The attendants at
the funeral of Rameses Ramilles, a fellow musician of Benjamin January’s, are
horrified when the pall bearers drop the coffin and out falls the body of a
white man. Hannibal Sefton, another fellow musician, recognizes the dead man as
Patrick Derryhick, a friend from his youthful, carefree days in England.
Benjamin helps arrange a
party to search for Ramilles’s body because the police will not search the
swamp for "A black man's corpse, particularly after a week or two in the
river….” Seeing how the body of his friend upset Hannibal and wanting to know
how Ramilles’s body was removed from the coffin and replaced with Derryhick’s
body, Benjamin, with approval of police investigator Lieutenant Abishag Shaw of
the New Orleans City Guards, helps with the investigation.
It doesn’t take
long for them to learn that Derryhick was with a party of Englishmen who came
to New Orleans so the youngest, Germinus Stuart, the 12th Viscount
Foxford, could pursue the French Creole beauty, Isobel Deschamps, whom he had
met in Paris. The other two members of the party are his uncle Diogenes and the
business manager of the Stuart estate, Caius Droudge.
The plot turns on the
romance between the young lovers, Isobel and Germinus, and involves
labyrinthine family secrets of both. They met in Paris while Isobel was
visiting relatives and Germinus was vacationing. Something happened that caused
Isobel to flee Paris and return to New Orleans. Soon after her return, she
leaves the city for Natchitoches Parish.
After
items belonging to Derryhick are found in his hotel room, Germinus
is arrested and charged with the murder. He refuses to admit he knows Isobel
and to say where he was when Derryhick was killed. For Benjamin, the answer to
Germinus’s silence lies upriver in Natchitoches Parish, in the St. John Chapel
in Cloutieville. So, once again we follow him into danger of being captured and
sold into slavery as he travels without either of his safety valves, Hannibal
or Shaw. He is sure that what he finds will also provide the motive for the
murder of Derryhick, which will lead to the murderer.
In the subplot,
Benjamin suspects Martin Quennell, brother of the funeral direct, of embezzling
money from the Faurbourg Treme Free Colored Militia and Burial Society of which
Benjamin is a board member and Martin the bookkeeper. Martin also may have
information about a quarrel between Derryhick and another man before Derryhick
was murdered. But before Hannibal can get the information out of him, Martin is
killed.
No Benjamin January novel
would be complete without Ben’s Catholic belief coming up against his
skepticism. He often relies on folk characters to ease his fears. So it is with
"Compair Lapin" or Brer Rabbit, the trickster whom he calls upon when
he wants to escape danger from white planters or thugs.
Hambly hits two discordant
notes in this otherwise neatly plotted mystery. In the funeral scene, Hambly
tells us nothing about Pere Eugenius, the only other white man present, and doesn’t
mention him again.
The ingenious
method the villain uses to replace Ramilles’s body with Derryhick’s stretches
plausibility but the novel is still exciting.
To readers who
follow my blog: thank you.
