A Free Man of Color

by Barbara Hambly

Book 1 in the Benjamin January Mysteries series.

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4.0

In New Orleans during Mardi Gras in 1833, physician and music teacher Benjamin January is playing at the Salle d’Orléans when Angélique Crozat, a celebrated woman of colour, is found strangled. The white authorities show little interest in her death, but January’s knowledge of the city’s divided communities gives him access to witnesses they overlook.

His inquiry leads from elegant Creole households and dance halls to riverfront taverns, slave quarters and practitioners of vodou. When suspicion turns towards January himself, he must identify the murderer before racial prejudice converts a weak accusation into a conviction from which a free Black man may have no defence.