I’m from California, so for me, “trembling lands” has an entirely different meaning…
Oddly enough, although I am a big fan of historical mysteries, especially those set in unusual times or places, I haven’t previously read any of Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series, set in 1830s New Orleans. Recently, however, I received a review copy of the latest title, Murder in the Trembling Lands, and now I don’t know why it took me so long to get started.
January is, as the title of the first book in the series proclaims, a free man of color, but that doesn’t mean his life is easy. Many people depend on him, so although he is a surgeon and a musician, there’s never enough money. Hambly does a fine job of portraying the society of the time in New Orleans, with its unbalanced, almost unbelievably bizarre, relationships between whites and blacks. So although January is acknowledged by (most of) the family of his mother’s former “protector”, that acceptance doesn’t run very deep, and he still must navigate a very narrow path of acceptability, or face financial ruin.
All of which explains why January feels he has to accept a commission from the privileged and rather naïve son of that former protector to figure out what really happened during a long-ago battle at a plantation upriver, in the trembling lands. (Which, I was amused to find out, are NOT areas that are prone to earthquakes, but rather lands on the borders of the bayous that flood readily and are muddy and unsuitable for crops.) And his investigation seems to be entwined with the mysterious death of one of the parties to a duel that January had been the doctor for. Or is it? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
Although the two mysteries were the basis of most of the action, I was more intrigued by some of the aspects of January’s everyday life. The idea that he has to worry about unscrupulous slavers who would be happy to abduct and sell him into slavery, free man or not, was abhorrent, but felt all too real, especially when he tried to plan his travel to avoid situations where he would be vulnerable. And the contrast between January’s sharp intelligence and the subservient manners he has to assume around whites was also striking – and also wrong. But both are likely accurate descriptions of the time and place…
All-in-all, I very much enjoyed both the “historical” and the “mystery” parts of Murder in the Trembling Lands, and now, sadly, I have to add the twenty previous books in the series to my “to be read” list. Which doesn’t have room for even one more book, but what can you do? And finally, my thanks go to Severn House and NetGalley for my review copy.
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