House of the Patriarch

by Barbara Hambly

Book 18 in the Benjamin January Mysteries series.

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Audio available 4.5

Benjamin January travels to New York in 1840 to find seventeen-year-old Eve Russell, who boarded a steamboat but apparently vanished before it reached its destination. Her disappearance seems impossible until January begins examining the passengers, crew and religious communities that may have offered her refuge.

New York’s revivalist movements, public exhibitions and competing reform societies conceal a trade in kidnapped free Black people. January’s search brings him close to blackbirders who can profit from his own capture, forcing him to solve Eve’s disappearance while finding a safe route back to his family.