Sold Down the River: Benjamin January Series, Book 4
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Product Description
Penetrating the murkiest corners of glittering New Orleans society, Benjamin January brought murderers to justice in A Free Man of Color, Fever Season, and Graveyard Dust. Now, in Barbara Hambly's haunting new novel, he risks his life in a violent plantation world darker than anything in the city....
When slave owner Simon Fourchet asks Benjamin January to investigate sabotage, arson, and murder on his plantation, January is reluctant to do any favors for the savage man who owned him until he was seven. But he knows too well that plantation justice means that if the true culprit is not found, every slave on Mon Triomphe will suffer.
Abandoning his Parisian French for the African patois of a field hand, cutting cane until his bones ache and his musician's hands bleed, Benjamin must use all his intelligence and cunning to find the killer ... or find himself sold down the river.
When slave owner Simon Fourchet asks Benjamin January to investigate sabotage, arson, and murder on his plantation, January is reluctant to do any favors for the savage man who owned him until he was seven. But he knows too well that plantation justice means that if the true culprit is not found, every slave on Mon Triomphe will suffer.
Abandoning his Parisian French for the African patois of a field hand, cutting cane until his bones ache and his musician's hands bleed, Benjamin must use all his intelligence and cunning to find the killer ... or find himself sold down the river.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Hambly once again writes a powerful and intriguing novel and I can say I liked it more than "Fever Season". Once again Benjamin January finds himself involved in deep mysteries but this time it seems that Benjamin's friends, the fiddler Hannibal and Lieutenant Abishag Shaw, can't arrive in time to rescue him from being sold as a slave. This story explores the roots of Hambly's "free man of color" and give us a wonderful extract of everyday life of the slaves in a cane plantation during the 1830s.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Continues the story of a free man of colour in 1830s Louisiana. This installment sees Ben resume life as a slave, having escaped it at age 7. The books are backed by historical research which paints a detailed yet accessible picture of life and society at the time and which draws the reader in. This readability only serves to highlight even more strongly the very different beliefs and behaviour of that time, particularly in treatment of coloured people, whether free or slave. Ben's increasing sense of vulnerability and fear at being abandoned on the plantation by his friends and co-conspirators are particularly vivid. However, the book avoids sentimentality and sensationalism. Add in intriguing plotlines, vivid (if not always likeable) characters and this series is both enoyable and thought-provoking.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
23 reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
A bitter tale well told
15 July 2000
Format:Hardcover
What will you do for love? Love of self, love of others, of family, friends and children? If hate is the other side of love, what will you be driven to do? Could you kill? Strike out at whoever is there, or cooly plan a vengeance so horrible solely because someone else will take the weight? Is there such a thing as making amends? Is saying "oops" saying sorry? The book is a shout of rage, the rage of Ben Janvier, of Simon Fourchet, of the Africans, of white women, set in the cool of fall amidst the heat of the cane harvest. Ms Hambly has used heat as a metaphor in all of the books of this series, but here the heat is man made, a hell of tiredness, of flame, of revenge,of love. I enjoyed the book, unable to put it down once the characters were set and the plot moved towards it's end. There were no winners, since everyone was damaged, or had been damaged, in some way before the story begins, or during it. Lives moved on, but the ties remain, and while we finally learn more about Ben's life prior to New Orleans, we also learn a little more about the motivation of his mother, and those like her, who have made a choice many women, if asked, would reject. Jeanette didn't make the choice, and I liked the contrast between her situation with Ben's mother's choice, and why, knowing what it would cost her son, she pressed him to take on the undercover assignment. I agree that the ending was a little contrived, but it is in the end a minor quibble. No one who reads the book will not be in the hold of that steamboat,and feel the heat,the desperation of everyone on board. Ms Hambly has done it again. When is the next Ben Janvier book due?
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Really outstanding-readers feel what slavery was like
5 July 2000
Format:Hardcover
In 1834 New Orleans, Benjamin January hopes to make some money to support himself and his mother by providing piano lessons. However, his livelihood is interrupted when his former slave master, the cruel Simon Fourchet demands he help him discover who is causing havoc at Mon Triomphe Plantation. Ben remains concerned for what Simon is capable of doing to all the slaves at his two plantations. However, he also has been there, done that, and has Simon's whip marks from a beating when he was seven to prove it. In spite of his personal fears, Ben reluctantly agrees to investigate.
Someone has destroyed much of the sugar cane crop and left voodoo messages on the mill's walls. The masters believe this Turner wannabe has aroused the sentiments that easily could boil into a slave uprising. Worried about the white man's retaliation towards everyone with black skin, Ben goes undercover as a slave on the embattled plantation. As Ben makes quiet inquiries, he remembers with this new experience how humiliating being a slave is and worries that he might never regain his freedom.
SOLD DOWN THE RIVER includes a great mystery with excellent characters. However, what makes this Americana fiction must reading is the depth of the period interwoven into the plot. It feels as if the audience is seeing first hand the perilous life of a slave on a plantation. The excellent who-done-it is cleverly designed and disguised. However, as with its predecessors (see A FREE MAN OF COLOR, FEVER SEASON, and GRAVEYARD DUST), this novel is a welcomed period piece that should bring much acclaim and many awards to Barbara Hambley.
Harriet Klausner
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
excellent feel
10 July 2000
Format:Hardcover
I've always been a fan of Hambly's and the Benjamin January series has been a great favorite for not only the excellent, believable charactors and solid storylines, but the little details. The motivations for the charactor's actions and the way they react come through, especially in this book. A regular reviewer would put it this way: Ben finds himself pursuing justice on a plantation run by a brutal former master, and the difficulties with reconciling with his past as well as the prejudices he faces get in the way of his investigation.
But it is much more - one sees motivations and the way that friendships develop under adverse conditions, and what prices people pay to protect themselves and their loved ones to the best of thier abilities. And how people reconciliate thier actions to themselves.
Yes, there are a few spots that are a little jarring to the consistancy, and a bit of a deux ex machina at the end, but in all, the plot development, the charactors, and the logical actions and reactions blended quite well - as well as the historical and location feel.
When Ms. Hambly is your historical tour guide, you can feel the mists and swampy miasma rise around you as you make your way through the cypress tangles bordering the cane fields along the river...
You won't get sold down the river with this one...
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