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Being a free man of color was a terrifying thing in New Orleans in the 1830s. Nowhere was one safe from physical violence or verbal abuse. White men angry at anything might take out their anger on you with impunity. Certain areas of town were too dangerous to visit especially after dark. Life was precarious and very few cared whether you lived or died. One summer day his sister Olympe asked him to go to a shack where friends had found the body of Hesione Le Cros, once a beautiful placee and now a murdered common prostitute. Furious that the white police were more concerned about the murder of a white planter, Guifford Avocet, than they were about this death, January refused to help Lieutenant Abishag Shaw in his investigation of the Avocet murder. But when Rose Vitrac's pupil Artois was murdered, the two of them know they are in danger as well. Ms. Hambly is brilliant at putting the reader into the very heart of her story. With dazzling descriptions utilizing every sense, she leads us to an intimate knowledge of New Orleans in the 1830s. The fetid odors swirl about us, the heat envelops us and the rain drenches us. The listless noises of the summer pluck at our ears while we experience the fear of walking into a dangerous part of town. Perhaps nothing is as vivid as the flight through the lush vegetation along the river during the opening minutes of a hurricane. I was breathless before we arrived at shelter and it did indeed feel as though I was experiencing it too. The historical record is dazzling. Few writers use history so well, to tell a story, to set the stage, yet never to overwhelm or weary the reader. New Orleans is, of course, a fantastic city even today and in the 1830s it was perhaps a microcosm of the new nation. Here were the long established French, disdaining the brash rude Americans who really did not even notice they were being scorned. Most of the more civilized citizens of old nations found the Americans exhausting and rude. Here also were the slaves, those people unable to control any part of their own lives and subject to whatever whims their owners might have. And we have the free people of color, especially the placees, the mistresses that the French wealthy men took for granted, cared for, and often set up for life. Their children lived between two worlds and often in no world, rejected by both. Slavery is a terrible legacy. Read this book and you will understand many of the nuances and subtleties of slavery as never before. Here are the field slaves, those who are pushed further than anyone should be pushed, the women who first must save their children, those who are loyal to masters who may even deserve the loyalty, and those who are not. The characters are empathetic and believable. Hambly writes Benjamin January with scrupulousness and thoroughness and makes him a man with worries and hopes, joys and sorrows, a man who despairs and yet dreams, and a man who grows and learns. The victims are not just plot devices; we feel genuine sadness over their deaths and mourn what might have been as well as what was. The plot is complex and never easily untangled; it will keep the reader involved until the very end even though the identity of the murderers is revealed fairly early. Ms. Hambly is a brilliant writer. This is not an afternoon's light entertainment but a story to be savored and enjoyed and carefully read. It is many-faceted, complex, and intricate and well worth the time you invest in reading it. I highly recommend it. c
Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, August 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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