Drinking Gourd (Benjamin January Series #14)

by Barbara Hambly

Overview

Benjamin January investigates the murder of a ‘conductor’ of the Underground Railway, helping slaves to freedom.

Benjamin January is called up to Vicksburg, deep in cotton-plantation country, to help a wounded “conductor” of the Underground Railroad – the secret network of safe-houses that guide escaping slaves to freedom. When the chief “conductor” of the “station” is found murdered, Jubal Cain – the coordinator of the whole Railroad system in Mississippi – is accused of the crime. Since Cain can’t expose the nature of his involvement in the railroad, January has to step in and find the true killer, before their covers are blown.

As January probes into the murky labyrinth of slaves, slave-holders, the fugitives who follow the “drinking gourd” north to freedom and those who help them on their way, he discovers that there is more to the situation than meets the eye, and that sometimes there are no easy answers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781847517081
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	10/31/2017
Series:	Benjamin January Series , #14
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Barbara Hambly holds a degree in medieval history from the University of California and has written novels in many genres, from mysteries to science fiction and fantasy. Married to science fiction writer George Alec Effinger, she lives in Los Angeles and teaches at a local college.

Editorial Reviews

Another strong entry in an always enjoyable series

Booklist

Another strong entry in an always enjoyable series

Booklist

★ 05/09/2016
Hambly’s outstanding 14th Benjamin January novel (after 2014’s Crimson Angel), set in the summer of 1839, takes the free black physician from New Orleans to Vicksburg, Miss., whose swampy environs hide runaway slaves desperate to join the Underground Railroad and “follow the drinking gourd” north to freedom. When Ezekias Drummond, the principal conductor of the local railroad, is stabbed to death, the authorities arrest Jubal Cain, who coordinates the whole railroad operation in Mississippi, for the crime. January, who’s been posing as a slave accompanying his white master, must identify Drummond’s killer before Cain’s role in the railroad is exposed. In addition to the slavery issue, Hambly focuses on broader social concerns. With panache and sensitivity, she explores the plight of women, both black and white, who can only endure abuses in such a society, and are rarely able to escape them as men sometimes can. Her well-tuned ear for the vernacular speech of her characters, whatever their race, is a plus. Agent: Frances Collin, Frances Collin Literary. (July)

Publishers Weekly

07/01/2016
Benjamin January travels to Vicksburg, MS, to assist a wounded "conductor" on the Underground Railroad. When the conductor dies, Jubal Cain, who's responsible for coordinating safe houses for runaway slaves, is accused of the murder. It's up to Benjamin to find the real killer. Hambly's outstanding historical series continues with this 14th book (after Crimson Angel).

Library Journal

2016-04-13
A former slave ventures into cotton country to participate in the Underground Railroad. Playing piano in a minstrel show is an unlikely job for Benjamin January, born into bondage but now a free man of color who trained as a surgeon in France. But the owner of the All-American Zoological Society's Traveling Circus and Exhibition of Philosophical Curiosities pays January a weekly salary of $10 to send home to his wife and son in New Orleans. When January and his friend Hannibal Sefton, a recovering opium addict who quotes Latin and plays fiddle in the band, receive an urgent call to travel up the Mississippi to Vicksburg, January must pose as the slave of his white companion and look to him for protection. In the Mississippi Valley of 1839, a prime cotton hand sells for $1,500, and January could easily be tricked or even kidnapped into slavery. He's willing to take that chance, however, to give medical help to Rex Ballou, a black barber wounded while trying to rescue runaway slaves following the Drinking Gourd—that is, the Big Dipper—to freedom. Ballou works with Ezekias Drummond, a white preacher who's an outspoken critic of abolition by day and a conductor on the Underground Railroad by night. He and his two sons are harboring several fugitives in an old ice house and hoping to move them upriver with the help of Jubal Cain, the assumed name of a founding member of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society posing as a slave dealer. But Cain publicly denounces Drummond and is arrested when the preacher is found stabbed to death in a cabin belonging to the subjugated wife of a wealthy planter. January risks not just his freedom, but his life to find the killer in a world in which white men treat their women little better than their slaves. Hambly (Crimson Angel, 2014, etc.) juxtaposes heroism with hypocrisy and altruism with cruelty in her compelling sixth installment.

Kirkus Reviews