Wet Grave

By Barbara Hambly

In such stunning novels of crime and character as Die Upon a Kiss, Sold Down the River, and A Free Man of Color, Benjamin January tracked down killers through the sensuous, atmospheric, dangerously beautiful world of Old New Orleans. Now, in this new novel by bestselling author Barbara Hambly, he follows a trail of murder from illicit back alleys to glittering mansions to a dark place where the oldest and deadliest secrets lie buried . . .

Wet Grave

It’s 1835 and the relentless glare of the late July sun has slowed New Orleans to a standstill. When Hesione LeGros--once a corsair’s jeweled mistress, now a raddled hag--is found slashed to death in a shanty on the fringe of New Orleans’s most lawless quarter, there are few to care. But one of them is Benjamin January, musician and teacher. He well recalls her blazing ebony beauty when she appeared, exquisitely gowned and handy with a stiletto, at a demimonde banquet years ago.

Who would want to kill this woman now--Hessy, they said, would turn a trick for a bottle of rum--had some quarrelsome “customer” decided to do away with her? Or could it be one of the sexual predators who roamed the dark and seedy streets? Or--as Benjamin comes to suspect--was her killer someone she knew, someone whose careful search of her shack suggests a cold-blooded crime? Someone whose boot left a chillingly distinctive print . . .

His inquiries at taverns, markets, and slave dances reveal little about “Hellfire Hessy” since her glory days in Barataria Bay, once the lair of gentlemen pirates. Then the murder is swept from his mind by the delivery of a crate filled with contraband rifles--and yet another telltale boot print left by its claimant. When a murder swiftly follows, Ben and Rose Vitrac, the woman he loves, fear the workings of a serpentine mind and a treacherous plot: one only they can hope to thwart in time.

All too soon they are fugitives of color in the stormy bayous and marshes of slave-stealer country, headed for smugglers’ haunts and sinister plantations, where one false step could be their last toward a...Wet Grave.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 29, 2003
• ISBN: 9780553897531

Barbara Hambly

Barbara Hambly was born in San Diego. Her interest in fantasy began with reading The Wizard of Oz at an early age and has continued ever since. She attended the University of California, Riverside, specialising in medieval history and then spent a year at the University at Bordeaux in Southern France as a teaching and research assistant. She now lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews for Wet Grave

[cissa_5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really love this series, and this is a great book therein. It is very satisfactory how everything played out here.

[foovay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the first of the Benjamin January books I have read. I quite literally could not put this book down until my eyes were slamming shut. Not exactly a mystery, not exactly a romance, but definately a thrilling historical novel that will grab you and not let go.

[delphica · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

(#34 in the 2003 Book Challenge)The latest (in paperback, I think another one is coming out soon in hardcover) in her mystery series featuring Benjamin Janvier, who was freed from slavery as a child, set in New Orleans in the early 19th century. The first book is called A Free Man of Color. I really enjoy this series, in addition to the mystery plots, they do a great job at showing many aspects of daily life from this time period, from dress to food to social customs. Obviously racism is a recurring theme, but it never takes over the story. This particular book started a little slow, and I was a bit nervous that the series had turned a corner for the less enjoyable, but by the end it completely picked up.Grade: B+ for this book, overall A for the series as a wholeRecommended: To people who like mysteries with historical settings, highly recommended to anyone with a particular interest in New Orleans history.