Lady of Perdition
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- 10,99 €
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- 10,99 €
Descrizione dell’editore
Benjamin January heads to the "Slaveholders' Republic" of Texas to locate a kidnapped girl and help a woman who saved him from the noose.
April, 1840. Benjamin January knows no black person in their right mind would willingly go to the Republic of Texas but when his former pupil Selina Bellinger is kidnapped and enslaved, he has no choice. Once there he is saved from being hanged by Valentina Taggart, wife of the wealthy landowner of Rancho Perdition.
After Valentina is accused of the murder of her husband, she in turn calls on Benjamin for help. To do so, he must abandon the safe haven of New Orleans, where people know he's a free man, to return to the self-proclaimed "Slaveholders' Republic".
In a land still disputed between vengeful Comanche, disgruntled Mexican Tejanos, Americans who want to join the United States and those who want to keep Texas free, January must uncover what happened to Valentina's husband. Behind lies, betrayals and rising political tensions lies the answer . . . but finding it could cost Ben his life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1840, Hambly's deeply researched 17th Benjamin January mystery (after 2018's Cold Bayou) takes free black man January and his consumptive musician friend, Hannibal Sefton, from New Orleans to the Republic of Texas, where animosity is seething between nationalists who want Texas to remain independent and those who favor joining the United States. January's dedication to helping black people obtain justice leads him to try to rescue Selina Bellinger, a young mulatto woman from New Orleans. Selina's lover duped her into eloping with him to Texas, where she was raped and trafficked. The stakes rise after the scheming Valentina Taggart, who helps January and Sefton in the Selina matter, is accused of murdering her wealthy rancher husband. When January and Sefton investigate, they're plunged into the Taggart family's "poisoned mess of drunken violence." Risking himself in a country where killing a slave is not considered murder, January can't resist saving helpless women from casual male brutality. Hambly's well-wrought denunciation of slavery and her skillful defense of women's rights resound from January's times to our own.
