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    Rebels of Babylon
    Rebels of Babylon
    Rebels of Babylon
    Ebook420 pages6 hours

    Rebels of Babylon

    By Ralph Peters

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    “Sixth in the brilliantly researched and hauntingly rich Major Abel Jones Civil War mystery thrillers” from the bestselling author of Bold Sons of Erin (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
     
    Abel Jones arrives in New Orleans to investigate the death of a young crusader and finds himself facing fantastic rumors of the resurrected dead as the Union-occupied city approaches hysteria. The corpse of a Yankee heiress washes up on a levee. Citizens disappear in the night from the alleys of the French Quarter. Tales of ritual murder taunt the authorities—as an uneasy truce between newly freed slaves and their bankrupt former masters, voodoo priestesses, smugglers, and unwelcome Yankee troops stretches to the breaking point. 
     
    Paying tribute to the great literary traditions of New Orleans, Owen Parry leads us from the intrigue-haunted alleys of the French Quarter to the mysteries of nearby plantations and bayous to unravel the powerful superstitions and deadly force of greed that wind through this dark and rich adventure.
     
    “A plot that twists and turns through voodoo and violence . . . Parry has a way with period color; his New Orleans lives and breathes.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch
     
    “Parry is superb.” —Nashville Tennessean
     
    “[The] satisfying sixth installment to Parry’s humorous, well-written and meticulously researched series of Civil War mysteries . . . all will delight in this installment’s continuing vivid historical detail and engaging protagonist.” —Publishers Weekly
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJun 14, 2023
    ISBN9780811748889
    Rebels of Babylon
    Author

    Ralph Peters

    Ralph Peters is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former enlisted man, a controversial strategist and veteran of the intelligence world; a bestselling, prize-winning novelist; a journalist who has covered multiple conflicts and appears frequently in the broadcast media; and a lifelong traveler with experience in over seventy countries on six continents. A widely read columnist, Ralph Peters' journalism has appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines and web-zines, including The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Washington Post, Newsweek, Harpers, and Armchair General Magazine. His books include The Officers’ Club, The War After Armageddon, Endless War, and Red Army. Peters grew up in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and studied writing at Pennsylvania State University. He lives and writes in the Washington, D.C. area.

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    • 3/5
      Sixth in a series of mystery novels featuring Major Abel Jones: a diminutive ex-sergeant in the East India Company who, somewhat against his will, finds himself acting as a confidential detective in the Union Army during the American Civil War. In his current case, he’s investigating the murder of a Northern heiress who had traveled to New Orleans with the idea of financing a scheme to return emancipated slaves to Africa.
      Jones is not an intellectually brilliant Sherlock Holmes type - rather, the cases get solved by dogged persistence. Jones does not have modern, politically correct sentiments; instead, he’s heartily critical of anything that’s not white, Welsh, and Methodist - although he will sometimes allow that he could be mistaken. The first person narration makes for an interesting “voice”; with just enough Welsh idiom and sentence structure to make the read interesting. I’m taken by the way Major Jones is portrayed as a religious man; the author is not reluctant to give a 19th Century protagonist appropriate values for the time, and does not mock those values. The author also has a good eye; these books would make good movies - lots of action, period costumes, etc.
      Major Abel Jones doesn’t like 1863 New Orleans very much; too hot, too many unreconstructed Confederates, too much luxury, too many French, too much Popery, too many women with not enough clothes. He doesn’t have a lot of confidence in General Nathaniel Banks, the Union military governor. The murder victim is Susan Peabody, the daughter of a wealthy and politically connected industrialist, a class Jones doesn’t have much use for. And there are dark hints that Miss Peabody may have Behaved Improperly With Negroes. Nevertheless, Jones has a job to do and goes about doing it. Some pretty unpleasant things happen in the course of doing this; human life at the time was often nasty, brutish, and short. A reasonably alert reader should be able to figure out what’s going on at just the right time; enough before Jones does to feel smug about it but not so early as to ruin things. The ending is satisfying; justice gets done.
      The author resists the temptation to introduce anachronism. Jones doesn’t prematurely invent fingerprinting or blood type analysis. There’s a moderate element of the supernatural; Jones, despite now being a devoted husband to his Mary Mwfwnwy back in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, lead a somewhat looser life during his India service and had a Without Benefit of Clergy-style relationship with a native girl. Her ghost shows up from time to time in the novels, including this one (Jones himself never sees her; she directs rescuers to him when he gets in trouble). Jones also goes through a voodoo ceremony (as a test of sincerity) which is depicted with the unfortunate mixture of voyeuristic titillation and condescending respect that is often accorded to “traditional” religions. However, the paranormal is muted enough not to interfere with the overall tone.
      A good period mystery, both this book and the series; I’d start at the first (Faded Coat of Blue) to get Abel Jones’ background.

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    Rebels of Babylon - Ralph Peters

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