num_pages: 432
description: A lush and haunting novel of a city steeped in decadent pleasures...and of a man, proud and defiant, caught in a web of murder and betrayal.It is 1833. In the midst of Mardi Gras, Benjamin January, a Creole physician and music teacher, is playing piano at the Salle d'Orleans when the evenings festivities are interrupted--by murder.Ravishing Angelique Crozat, a notorious octoroon who travels in the city's finest company, has been strangled to death. With the authorities reluctant to become involved, Ben begins his own inquiry, which will take him through the seamy haunts of riverboatmen and into the huts of voodoo-worshipping slaves.But soon the eyes of suspicion turn toward Ben—for, black as the slave who fathered him, this free man of color is still the perfect scapegoat....
language: English
title: A Free Man of Color
titlecomplete: A Free Man of Color (Benjamin January, #1)
genres: Historical Mystery, Historical, Mystery, African American, Detective, Historical Fiction, 19th Century, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Crime
ratings_count: 3325
places: New Orleans, Louisiana
series: Benjamin January
publisher: Bantam