Benjamin January made his debut in bestselling author Barbara Hambly's A Free Man of Color, a haunting mélange of history and mystery. Now he returns in another novel of greed, madness, and murder amid the dark shadows and dazzling society of old New Orleans... — The summer of 1833 has been one of brazen heat and brutal pestilence, as... more » the city is stalked by Bronze John--the popular name for the deadly cholera epidemic that tests the healing skills of doctor and voodoo alike. Benjamin January's Paris medical training keeps him all night long with the dying at Charity Hospital. Then his work as a music teacher takes him out again into the fetid, empty midday streets. Empty except for Cora Chouteau, a dark-skinned plantation waif come to town in search of her lover, sold in slavery to one of its prominent families. Though January's certain she's a runaway, he agrees to try to pass a message to the man she seeks.

Soon, however, he learns that Cora is accused of murdering her lecherous master, Otis Redfern, and poisoning his wife almost to death. And of stealing five thousand dollars and a pearl necklace. Yet it seems that Emily Redfern herself, iron-willed and socially ambitious, had cause to wish her profligate husband dead. And Cora, too--or so the girl insists....

Before Ben can unpick one story from the other, Cora disappears into the torrid night. And as storms rage in from the Gulf, he is swept into an inquiry that leads into a labyrinth of lives: from the vulgar American Emily Redfern to Madame Delphine Lalaurie, flawless jewel of Creole society, and from the wisdom of a voodoo queen to the learning of a lovely schoolmistress, Cora's only true friend.

Risking both his life and his freedom, Ben pursues the truth through a lush and fevered world of opulent town houses, grim cemeteries, and raucous taverns. A gilded world of injustice, deceit, and calumny--and a half-glimpsed horror that far transcends the perils of...Fever Season.

Barbara Hambly attended the University of California and spent a year at the University of Bordeaux, France, obtaining a master's degree in medieval history in 1975. She has worked as both a teacher and a technical editor, but her first love has always been history. Ms. Hambly lives in New Orleans and Los Angeles with two Pekingese, a cat, and another writer. She is at work on her next historical novel, Graveyard Dust.