Good Man Friday

Starred review from April 15, 2013
Historical horrors abound in Hambly’s excellent 12th Benjamin January novel (after 2011’s Ran Away). By showing compassion for a dying fighting slave, January—a free black man and surgeon–turned–piano player in antebellum New Orleans—loses his musician job. To support his family, he agrees to help wealthy planter Henri Viellard (whose mistress is January’s sister Minou) locate a missing friend—elderly English mathematician Selwyn Singletary. Along with Veillard, Minou, and Viellard’s chilly wife, Chloe, he travels to a decadent Washington, D.C., inhabited by slave stealers, grave robbers, spies, and venal legislators. Hambly’s brilliantly conceived cast includes a young Edgar Allan Poe, a sinister British spymaster, a New England abolitionist promoting an early form of baseball, and a courageous and loyal slave named Ganymede Tyler, the eponymous “Man Friday.” Hambly brings back to life a world where Congressmen obliviously pass chained men without a glance, forcing her readers to wonder painfully with January, “Jesus, where are you now?” Agent: Frances Collin Literary Agency.

June 1, 2013
Benjamin January, free man of color, leaves New Orleans for the iniquities of Washington City. Desperate for work, Ben (Ran Away, 2011, etc.) agrees to accompany Henri and Chloe Viellard north to search for their vanished friend, mathematician Selwyn Singletary. Also included on the trip are Henri's mistress (and Ben's sister), Dominique, her daughter Charmian, her maid and many trunks of silk petticoats. Upon landing in Washington, the blacks settle into a rooming house while the Viellards establish themselves at a whites-only hotel. Nobody, however, has seen hide nor hair of Singletary for the months since he arrived from England. Not Oldmixton, the British embassy secretary; not Luke or Rowena Bray. But Bray's valet, Mede, admits that the man entrusted him with a ledger, though he can't decipher what it says: It's just a series of numbers that make no sense. While trying to puzzle out matters, Ben must avoid the Fowlers, notorious slave snatchers, waylay grave robber Wylie Pease and learn a rudimentary form of baseball, which is illegal for blacks to play. Edgar Poe, a Baltimore gentleman come to Washington in search of work, is staying at Ben's boardinghouse. Poe, who thrives on solving codes, joins Ben in pursuit of Singletary. They end up combating a spy ring that plots trouble for Canada and visiting a private mad asylum where doping is the rule of the day. Before all is resolved, Ben will be wounded in a skirmish with the slave snatchers, Dominique will be kidnapped, Mede will have his throat cut, and a woman will try to murder her husband and claim his death a suicide. Mid-19th-century sexism and racism galore, presented with Hambly's usual verve and historical accuracy.

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May 1, 2013

When money becomes tight, January takes on an unusual assignment that requires him to leave New Orleans for Washington. Needless to say, 1838 wasn't the safest of times for a free man of color. This is the 12th installment in a memorable historical series (after Ran Away).

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2013
To support his family, Benjamin January, musician and trained surgeon, agrees to travel from New Orleans to Washington City with Henri and Chloe Viellard to search for Mr. Singletary, who has disappeared. The three are accompanied by Dominique, who is January's half-sister and Henri Viellard's mistress. In 1838 Washington City, January, a former slave, and the wealthy Viellards, along with Edgar Poe, work to trace the missing man. Their investigation leads them to grave robbers, spies, and men who kidnap freedmen to sell them into slavery. After a newly freed slave is murdered, and members of their group are kidnapped, they unravel the clues, uncovering an unlikely culprit. Detailed descriptions of Washington City and its inhabitants and the precarious lives of freedmen in the South are woven throughout a complex mystery, vividly immersing the reader in a different time and culture. Well-drawn characters, from January to government officials to tradesmen to wealthy planters, populate this fascinating entry in the long-running series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)