DAYS OF THE DEAD
by Barbara Hambly
A mordantly atmospheric twist on the locked-room puzzle set in 1835.
Free man of color Benjamin January (Wet Grave, 2002, etc.) and his new wife Rose have traveled from their New Orleans home to Mexico City to attend the imminent hanging of January’s opium-eating, Virgil-and-Shakespeare–quoting friend Hannibal Sefton. Sefton, one of 24 guests present at Don Prospero de Castellon’s dinner party, is accused of poisoning Prospero’s only son, the despicable Fernando, and the seriously demented Don fully expects his son’s ghost to appear at the upcoming Day of the Dead celebration and demonstrate how Sefton committed the dastardly deed. Capitan Ylario of the Guardia Civil, loathe to wait for a ghost’s testimony, would prefer to execute Sefton right now, but he’s thwarted by the intercession of Generalissimo Santa Anna. While January and Rose sort through the many dinner guests’ familial, romantic, and religious attachments, as well as their knowledge of arcane poisons and allergies, the Don’s cook is murdered and Fernando’s valet/lover absconds. It will take dead-of-night stealth, several disguises, a reworded will, and the purported appearance of the awaited ghost to resolve matters in a bloody climax.
A few too many dinner guests and liaisons, perhaps, but exquisitely delineated 19th-century Tex-Mex warfare and death rituals from passionate historian Hambly.