wetgrave

"You know what they say of white men in Louisiana," January told the boy. "That they come here seeking their fortunes, but all they find is a wet grave."

Benjamin January is a free man of color, a Paris trained surgeon and talented pianist in decadent 1830's New Orleans. When Benjamin January is taken to a murder scene by his sister, the enigmatic Voodooine Olympe, he never expected the victim to be the beautiful mistress of one of Jean Lafitte's pirates. Her glory days are long over, and she is much different from Benjamin's memory of their brief encounter. No longer the wild beauty dressed up in silks and topaz, she has become a desperate drunk, doing anything for the price of a bottle. When the police, caught up in their own mysterious murder can't investigate, January decides that it's up to him. He doesn't start his search simply because of his memories of her, or because there was no real reason to murder Hesione, who lived in a run down shack and begged for her food. It's the signs that someone waited a long time for her to come home, and the handful of money found in her apron pocket, more than enough to keep her in food for a month.

One of the most remarkable things about this series is the fact that the main character is a free man of color during the time when slavery was still in force, where he must carry papers everywhere to prove his freedom at a moment's notice, where to raise his hand to defend himself against an attack is a hanging offence if the attacker is white. It binds our hero in ways most heroes aren't bound. In most stories, if our protagonist kills a person in self defense it's no problem. If he or she is taken prisoner, then another person is likely to free them should the chance arrive. Ben has no such luxuries. If he is caught, his papers taken away, it's his word against his white captors that he is not a slave, and in a country where Italians can be mistaken for runaway "octoroons" and kept prisoner if they have no proof otherwise, his word is unlikely to be taken. It adds an element of danger to the story, a sense of worry for January every time he wanders too far away from the city, and his friends.

In this sixth installment of the Benjamin January series, Ms. Hambly more than proves to us that Ben still has many stories worth telling. She takes us away from the high elegance of the upper class to concentrate on New Orleans during the summer, where all who can have fled the city for more amenable climes. Benjamin and his dauntless Rose end up searching the Barataria, an area of marsh and swamp that surrounds New Orleans. It is where many of the plantations are, and where Lafitte and his Pirates are said to have hidden their treasure. They follow rumors of slave uprisings and murders, determined to answer their questions. She does a wondrous job with setting --- you can feel the mosquitoes buzz around, imagine the teaming and dangerous life that swarms the waters around them. Every character is carefully drawn --- even if she only uses a few words, you can see each player completely in your head, hear every type of dialect from the Kaintuck of head of the city guards Abishag Shaw to the gentle Creole tones of Chloë St Chinian. These characters are so round that people you heard of in passing in the previous book and perhaps didn't care for are completely turned upside down so that in this book, now that you actually meet them, you tend to like them. The conversations are also very well done, in calmer moments filled with that gentle sense of humor that can only come from good friends who are completely comfortable with each other.

The pleasures of this book, and indeed, this series don't only come from the mystery itself. True, the stories are exciting, the actual mystery of the book clever and surprising. The thing that really draws me is the fact that each book is like a bit of time travel, every part of it is well researched, and the characters are an enormous pleasure to be around. I always miss Barbara Hambly's characters a little, when I close the book. Wet Grave is my favorite of the series thus far, with many bits that will please long time readers as well as people just starting. (Reviewed by Cindy Lynn Speer for Mostly Fiction 05-8-02)