- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Severn House Publishers Ltd (25 Feb 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0727880101
- ISBN-13: 978-0727880109
- Product Dimensions: 22.3 x 14.6 x 2.7 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 962,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Shirt On His Back
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £8.45
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Shirt on His Back (Benjamin January Mysteries) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £8.45, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
10 reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Love the story, hate the binding!
2 April 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Barbara Hambly has done it again, she's written another fantastic Benjamin January mystery/novel. The story is full of her usuals, Benjamin, Rose, Abishag Shaw, and Hannibal. In addition to those, she has invented a whole terrific cast of characters to flesh out her version of the Rendezvous of the Mountain Man. It is an amazing tale full of murder, mayhem and romance: all the grand passions that makeup a Benjamin January mystery. I'll not give any of it away because every bit of Ms. Hambly's prose is worth the reading and purchasing of this new book in the series.
One thing I did miss, something that is usually in one of Ms. Hambly's books, is some kind of "authors notes" or "afterword". I had many questions about some of the story elements that would have been better explained or given historical credence if there had been one.
I have to finally say it, because I didn't in my previous review of "Dead and Buried" the last Benjamin January mystery, the only reason I've given this book four stars is--the terrible design, layout and bindery of the books. The company currently publishing her books is, Severn House (and of course I thank them for continuing to publish these terrific mysteries), but these books deserve a much better housing to reside in. The double printing of the dustcover and the book cover is really weird, almost as if this a children's book, the only place I've seen this done. The use of a sans-serif typeface for headers, chapter heads and initial caps is terrible, especially for the time-period that the books are set in (for example you only need to look at her first books published by Bantam Books to see how beautiful they could be). It's a real shame. I will admit that the bindery is extremely strong and the covers tough, this is not an easy book to destroy while reading.
So, I've said my piece about the book's design and look which I believe is an important element but REMEMBER, the most important part is the excellent story and Ms. Hambly has delivered one, once again. Congrats! Here's to future Benjamin January mysteries (especially the rumor of one about his days in Paris with his beautiful first wife, Ayasha). That's a story just waiting to be told--I can't wait!!!
One thing I did miss, something that is usually in one of Ms. Hambly's books, is some kind of "authors notes" or "afterword". I had many questions about some of the story elements that would have been better explained or given historical credence if there had been one.
I have to finally say it, because I didn't in my previous review of "Dead and Buried" the last Benjamin January mystery, the only reason I've given this book four stars is--the terrible design, layout and bindery of the books. The company currently publishing her books is, Severn House (and of course I thank them for continuing to publish these terrific mysteries), but these books deserve a much better housing to reside in. The double printing of the dustcover and the book cover is really weird, almost as if this a children's book, the only place I've seen this done. The use of a sans-serif typeface for headers, chapter heads and initial caps is terrible, especially for the time-period that the books are set in (for example you only need to look at her first books published by Bantam Books to see how beautiful they could be). It's a real shame. I will admit that the bindery is extremely strong and the covers tough, this is not an easy book to destroy while reading.
So, I've said my piece about the book's design and look which I believe is an important element but REMEMBER, the most important part is the excellent story and Ms. Hambly has delivered one, once again. Congrats! Here's to future Benjamin January mysteries (especially the rumor of one about his days in Paris with his beautiful first wife, Ayasha). That's a story just waiting to be told--I can't wait!!!
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Justice or family -what comes first?
13 Mar 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
That question is the heart of Barbara Hambly's latest Benjamin January mystery, a thoroughly entertaining expedition away from the complex social stratum of New Orleans into the chaos of the Mountain Rendezvous of the fur trappers and traders.
Financial difficulties and friendship have resulted in both January and the consumptive fiddler Hannibal Sefton accompanying New Orleans City Guard Lieutenant Abishag Shaw to the 1830s American frontier. Shaw is on a mission that puts him at odds with his innate sense of duty. He is seeking to find and execute without trial the murderer of his younger brother, one of the few family members that Shaw had left behind in a lawless world when he sought the veneer of civilization and order in the south. If he fails in this task he'll lose the respect of his elder brother, yet if he succeeds he may very well lose his own sense of worth.
January is greatly concerned for the mental states of both Shaw and their withdrawal wracked friend Hannibal, not to mention constantly worried for the health of his wife Rose, who is awaiting the arrival of their first baby back in fever-ridden New Orleans. However, this does not stop him from enjoying the ready welcome and acceptance fostered by the dangerous conditions and rare opportunities to see fellow men on the frontier that he, as a free man of color, has never received in his own hometown. Even though he more than once finds himself in uncomfortable conditions and mortal danger he is fascinated by the wild beauty of the untamed environment as well as the vibrant personalities surrounding him. The Mountain Rendezvous brims with colorful characters, serious drinking, outrageous contests and even a unexpected wedding.
Having been delighted by delving into Hannibal Sefton's checkered past in the previous novel, I was excited to learn a little more about the origins of the deceptively unsophisticated and dangerous but fair Lieutenant Shaw. The bleak reasons for abandoning a way of life at which he was surpassingly skilled - his father called him "best killer on the mountain" - are quietly revealed, although there is still much left undisclosed about his upbringing and education in the hills. Most of all, Hambly still hasn't answered the question of why Shaw, unlike his rather conventionally named brothers Tom and John, was stuck with Abishag!
Financial difficulties and friendship have resulted in both January and the consumptive fiddler Hannibal Sefton accompanying New Orleans City Guard Lieutenant Abishag Shaw to the 1830s American frontier. Shaw is on a mission that puts him at odds with his innate sense of duty. He is seeking to find and execute without trial the murderer of his younger brother, one of the few family members that Shaw had left behind in a lawless world when he sought the veneer of civilization and order in the south. If he fails in this task he'll lose the respect of his elder brother, yet if he succeeds he may very well lose his own sense of worth.
January is greatly concerned for the mental states of both Shaw and their withdrawal wracked friend Hannibal, not to mention constantly worried for the health of his wife Rose, who is awaiting the arrival of their first baby back in fever-ridden New Orleans. However, this does not stop him from enjoying the ready welcome and acceptance fostered by the dangerous conditions and rare opportunities to see fellow men on the frontier that he, as a free man of color, has never received in his own hometown. Even though he more than once finds himself in uncomfortable conditions and mortal danger he is fascinated by the wild beauty of the untamed environment as well as the vibrant personalities surrounding him. The Mountain Rendezvous brims with colorful characters, serious drinking, outrageous contests and even a unexpected wedding.
Having been delighted by delving into Hannibal Sefton's checkered past in the previous novel, I was excited to learn a little more about the origins of the deceptively unsophisticated and dangerous but fair Lieutenant Shaw. The bleak reasons for abandoning a way of life at which he was surpassingly skilled - his father called him "best killer on the mountain" - are quietly revealed, although there is still much left undisclosed about his upbringing and education in the hills. Most of all, Hambly still hasn't answered the question of why Shaw, unlike his rather conventionally named brothers Tom and John, was stuck with Abishag!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Hambly just gets better & better
16 Aug 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
In "The Shirt Off His Back," Barbara Hambly takes Benjamin January out of antebellum New Orleans, & drops him into an environment we don't often think about - the real "old West." I think this is Hambly's best book since the first of this series ("A Free Man of Color"). Set in what is now Wyoming, at a fur-trading rendezvous along the Green River near Horse Creek, in the heart of Indian territory, the story is a richly beautiful recreation of the time, place & people of the American West in the late 1830s. Hambly brings to vivid life a huge cast of characters: rough-and-ready fur trappers who live most of the year in the wilderness, converging once a year at the "rendezvous" to sell their furs, drink, gamble, womanize, fight, & gossip (in no particular order); sophisticated Eastern businessmen & clerks from the Hudson's Bay & American Fur Companies; frontiersmen like Jim Bridger & Kit Carson; Mexican traders & the women who travel with them, selling a variety of goods & entertainments; & the Blackfeet, Omaha & other native peoples, some hostile to the fur traders, some not, but all coming to realize that their lands & lives are already at risk from the invasion of white men (including Ben, whom the Indians think of as a "black white man") who bring liquor & guns, & who even then were decimating the animals that had sustained the Indians' existence. The landscape is beautifully drawn - a dry creek flooded by a sudden storm, hills covered in lodgepole pines, cottonwood thickets, trails that lead through dry washes & gullies along the foothills of the Gros Ventre Mountains, the open plains already rutted from the wagon wheels of American settlers moving further & further west. As always, Hambly's plot is a well-written mystery. She plays fair, providing reasonable clues to the identity of the murderer. Each chapter has a cliffhanger ending, and the eventual resolution is satisfying. She doesn't sugarcoat the harshness, cruelty & injustice of the era she writes about, but she honestly depicts its beauty as well, & makes us feel its loss.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
