Barbara Hambly

Masked balls, duels and murder: musician, sleuth and free man of color Benjamin January is caught up in a shocking crime in this gripping nineteenth-century mystery set in New Orleans.February, 1841. It?s Carnival season in New Orleans. Free man of color Benjamin January ? a surgeon turned piano player, with a talent for attracting trouble ? is playing at an opulent masked ball when, little to his surprise, a quarrel breaks out between two guests, and his services are requested at a duel. Young planter Bastien Damoreau has accused a recent arrival to town of passing himself off as white ? an insult not to be borne.The duel results in the stranger?s death. But when January examines the body, he?s disturbed to realise that young Damoreau couldn?t possibly be the killer, as the dead man was shot from behind . . . January knows it?s murder, but this is white people?s business, and calling attention to himself is not a risk he can afford to take. So when Detective Abishag Shaw asks if he?ll investigate, he declines ? a decision he will later come to regret. Murder in the Trembling Lands by NYT-bestselling author Barbara Hambly is the latest instalment of the critically-acclaimed historical mystery series featuring ?winning character? Benjamin January, who ?nimbly mov[es] through parts of history we should all know better? (The New York Times)

Welcome to Hollywood of the 1920s: a world filled with glamour, fake names . . . and the occasional felony!July, 1924. After nine months of living in Hollywood and working as a companion to her beautiful silent-movie star sister-in-law, young British widow Emma Blackstone is settling into her new role: doctoring film scenarios whenever the regular scenarist is overwhelmed with work, which seems to be most of the time.Shoots for the Western movie Our Tiny Miracle are in full swing, with little seven-year-old Susy Sweetchild playing the lead and acting most professionally. Maybe too professionally, Emma thinks, shocked to the core when the child star is nearly killed in a stunt scene and her mother ? former screen siren Selina Sutton ? seems only to care that Susy gets the job done. But Emma?s concerns only worsen when news reaches her that Susy and her mother have been kidnapped. The ransom note says to keep the cops out of it, so it?s up to Emma and Kitty to find them before the unthinkable happens and Emma is forced to rewrite Our Tiny Miracle with a far more tragic ending . . .New York Times bestselling author Barbara Hambly once again brings the glamour and intrigue of Hollywood to life! An unputdownable mystery for fans of female-fronted historical mysteries set in the roaring twenties.