House of the Patriarch

by Barbara Hambly, Ron Butler (Read by)

Overview

No one can talk to the dead … can they? Freeman of color Benjamin January gets caught up in a strange, spiritual world that might lead to his own demise, as he hunts for a missing teenager in this gripping, atmospheric historical mystery.

New Orleans, 1840. Freshly home from a dangerous journey, the last thing Benjamin January wants to do is leave his wife and young sons again. But when old friends Henri and Chloë Viellard ask for his help tracking down a missing girl in distant New York, he can’t say no.

Three weeks ago, seventeen-year-old Eve Russell boarded a steamboat—and never got off it. Mrs. Russell is adamant that Eve has been kidnapped, but how could someone remove a teenager from a crowded deck in broad daylight? And why would anyone target Eve?

The answer lies in New York, a hotbed of new religions and beliefs, of human circuses and freak shows, and of “blackbirders” who will use any opportunity to kidnap a freeman of color and sell him into slavery. January is determined to uncover the truth, but will he ever be able to return to New Orleans to share it?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781799918141
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	03/15/2022
Series:	The Benjamin January Mysteries , #18
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Barbara Hambly has written novels in many genres, from mysteries to science fiction and fantasy. She holds a degree in medieval history from the University of California.

Ron Butler is a Los Angeles–based actor, Earphones Award–winning narrator, and voice artist with over a hundred film and television credits.

Editorial Reviews

★ 11/02/2020

At the start of Hambly’s outstanding 18th Benjamin January mystery (after 2020’s Lady of Perdition), a well-to-do English couple in 1840 hire January, a free Black New Orleans musician with a reputation as a detective, to locate their 17-year-old daughter, Eve Russell, who recently vanished from a steamboat in Long Island Sound. January, who’s also a French trained physician banned from practicing in the prejudiced United States, travels to New York City, where he finds racial hatred more poisonous than in New Orleans. He soon rescues a Black woman and her daughter from molesters, and aids a white man, Phineas T. Barnum, who’s being pursued by moneylenders. The perilous search for Eve leads to an upstate community of religious phonies, who prey on credulous farmers and escaped slaves using the Underground Railroad to reach Canada, among others. Hambly’s masterful historical detail, scrupulous character portrayal, and psychological analysis of human frailties contribute handsomely to her storytelling. This long-running series shows no signs of losing steam. Agent: Frances Collin, Frances Collin Literary. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

A stark and occasionally brutal story, and Hambly tells it superbly, in prose that is vivid and empathetic. For fans of this fine series, this is a must-read

Booklist Starred Review of Lady of Perdition

“Outstanding … Hambly’s masterful historical detail, scrupulous character portrayal, and psychological analysis of human frailties contribute handsomely to her storytelling. This long-running series shows no signs of losing steam” – Publishers Weekly Starred Review



“In Hambly’s expert hands, New York is a dark, threatening place, in many ways a foreign land to January … Hambly lays bare the dark underbelly of American society in the mid-nineteenth century. A fine entry in an impressive series” – Booklist

From the Publisher

A stark and occasionally brutal story, and Hambly tells it superbly, in prose that is vivid and empathetic. For fans of this fine series, this is a must-read

null Booklist Starred Review of Lady of Perdition