Review by Booklist Review
Summoned to witness a duel outside New Orleans during the raucous Carnival season, Benjamin January is tested both as a surgeon and as a sleuth when he determines that the victim was shot not by his rival but by an unknown third party. Another mystery writer might have titled this The Case of the Duplicitous Duel, but in the twenty-first installment of her popular historical murder mystery series, Hambly ensnares her surgeon/piano player/teacher/detective protagonist in an intricate case that harkens back to those confusing days of the War of 1812, when New Orleans was the epicenter of battles involving British, French, Spanish, and American troops. At stake are tons of buried silver, deeds to abandoned property, and the restoration of a plantation owner's reputation. Such crimes, however, are merely master researcher Hambly's means to an end, for her storytelling talents lie in the setting of the scene. Hambly's 1840s New Orleans is a deviously convoluted society laden with arcane rules of behavior for every segment of its elaborate social structure. Illuminating, challenging, and enlightening.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Hambly's sturdy latest historical mystery featuring Black pianist and physician Benjamin January (after The Nubian's Curse) combines a clever plot with a vivid evocation of mid-19th-century Louisiana. In 1841, January is performing at a masked ball in New Orleans when Bastien Damoreau, who is deep in debt, accuses Edouard-Georges Couvillier, a recent arrival from France, of being a Black man attempting to pass as white. Couvillier responds by challenging Damoreau to a duel, and January accepts a request to be one of the surgeons present at the skirmish, where he witnesses Damoreau shoot and kill Couvillier. However, January's subsequent examination of Couvillier's corpse reveals that the bullet that killed him came from behind, leading the doctor to suspect that Damoreau was perhaps hired to insult Couvillier and bait him into a fake duel that could serve as cover for a more personally motivated slaying. Initially reluctant to investigate further, January gets roped into the case anyway. As always, Hambly fully immerses readers in her humid historical setting, and January proves an astute, empathetic sleuth. This long-running series shows no signs of slowing down. Agent: Sarah Yake, Frances Collin Literary. (July)
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