Sold Down the River (Benjamin January, Book 4)

I set out to give this 5 stars, because it's one of the most affecting novels I've ever read. Then I read the other reviews, and thought perhaps I should give it 4 stars because so many people seem to have found the number of characters confusing, and actually the whole plot does seem contrived in retrospect, although I didn't feel that way while I was reading it. It reads more like a pure historical novel than genre fiction, and since it's presented as genre fiction, it may not meet the reader's expectations. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it's one of the most affecting novels I've ever read. The story isn't about the mystery, it's about the characters and the setting. If it were about the mystery, I wouldn't have read it because genre fiction usually bores me to tears. The one concession I'll make is that you should not read this without reading "A Free Man of Color" first. If you've already got a handle on the backstory of Ben and his family and friends, it's easier to keep track of all the new characters.

It is very difficult to read this book of Ms. Hambly's because her portrayal of slavery and the slave's lot in 19th century America is so real. The book is filled with horror from cover to cover, but there is warmth, fellowship and love there too. When people are together in misery very lasting and strong bonds and friendships are forged, and Benjamin January rediscovers this when he goes undercover on a cane plantation to try to determine who is behind all the accidents and deaths occuring on his old master's plantation. January certainly has no love for Simon Fourtier, but he can't help going to help because if tragedy occurs to the white folks on a plantation, it can't help but be felt by the slaves, and they usually end up suffering the more for it. January goes to help, and goes to work as a field hand with the threat of being plunged back into the slave's life very real to him. He makes some lasting friendships, but at the same time uncovers an evil so grotesque that he can hardly take it in. Luckily for Ben, his old friend Hannibal and Abishag Shaw come to his rescue before he is actually "sold down the river". Ms. Hambly's research is very extensive, and she captures this era better than anyone I've read.

I have waited long for another Hambly book. After Dragonbane where the characters were so real and moving, to find a very complex, exciting, capable and intricate character in Benjamin Janvier. He is sorrowful but not bitter, aware, and intelligent, a musician an dphysician ( I wish I could be)and yet fighting the problems and complexities of New Orleans and the south in 1831. We get a real but not overly gruesome feel of slavery. You see the filth and cruelty but it is not basked in like some torture-lover. I have read one other Janvier novel and will go back and get the rest. Thank you for making real understandable and identifiable people.

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?

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