December 1840. Surgeon turned piano-player Benjamin January is looking forward to a peaceful holiday with his family. But the arrival of an old friend brings unexpected news - and unexpected danger.
Persephone Jondrette has found Arithmus, a Sudanese man with extraordinary mental abilities who January last saw in France, nearly fifteen years ago, during a ghost-hunting expedition to a haunted chateau. January and his friends survived the experience , but Arithmus' benefactor, the British explorer Deverel Wishart, did not. He was discovered dead one morning, his face twisted in horror, and shortly afterwards Arithmus vanished, never to be seen again.
Did Deverel succumb to the chateau's ghosts - or did Arithmus murder him and run away? January is determined to uncover the truth about the tragic incident from his past, and clear his old friend's name - but even he isn't prepared for what happens next . . .
This is the twentieth novel in the Benjamin January series of historical crime fiction. There are also shorter stories in this universe, self published by the author on Smashwords. Benjamin is an African American living and working in New Orleans in the 1830s and 40s, making his living mostly from music, but also as a sleuth. He has a cop buddy, Abishag Shaw, and a fellow musician friend, Hannibal Sefton, an Irishman with a Stradivarius violin, telling us his family background is more than we might think.
There is still a murder mystery lingering from 1825, and people who were there are in America, still suffering. When the Vicomtesse he knew as opera dancer Persephone Jondrette approaches him, Benjamin agrees to travel to Natchez to see his old friends and find out what happened. Meanwhile, his niece Zizi-Marie is about to get married and there is about to be another murder…
This is one of a number of novels in this series that has flashbacks to Benjamin’s time in France, and we meet his first wife, Ayasha.
It’s amazing how this series is still going strong, after twenty novels and several short stories and novelettes. I have been thoroughly enjoying all of them. Most of them have historical events in the background and some even have historical figures, such as Edgar Allan Poe(Good Man Friday) and P.T Barnum(House Of The Patriarch). There aren’t any historical figures or events in this one, but the Nubian’s Curse title refers to a scholar who has a manuscript and a goddess figure proving the existence of the Nubian Dynasty of Egypt, something most whites really don’t want to believe. There is also mention of this new thing called chloroform…
If you haven’t read the series, it’s probably best to begin with the first two books, but you don’t need to read all of them in order. They have regular and semi regular characters, but, like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, can be read more or less stand alone.
Highly recommended!
The series is available in both Apple Books and Kindle, also in Kobo, audiobook and print.
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