Crimson Angel: A Mystery Novel In Which A Free American Black Man Goes To Haiti in 1838

Crimson Angel is the 13th novel in the Benjamin January mystery series by Barbara Hambly.  Benjamin January is a free Black man in 19th century New Orleans.  I've read several of the books in these series, but it was before I joined Goodreads or started this blog.  So I have no record of them.  

The first thing you should know is that Crimson Angel  isn't primarily about solving the mystery. You do find out whodunit, but  it's more about the characters and their histories.

                               

                                 

Benjamin January ends up going to Spain, Cuba and Haiti not mainly to solve a murder, but to find out why people were following and harassing both him and his wife, Rose. 

I learned that at the time, some Cubans wanted Cuba to become part of the United States.  I thought that if Cuba today had the American medical system, they'd wish their ancestors had chosen differently.  It was the slaveholding plantation owners who wanted to become Americans.  They wanted to bond with their counterparts in the American South.  It occurred to me that this probably wouldn't have worked.  The Cuban plantation owners were Catholics.  There was and still is a great deal of intolerance against Catholics in the American South.

One of the characters was abusive toward his wife.  In addition to physical abuse, he took away her books because he said they gave her "bad ideas".  People often read books that confirm the ideas that they already had.  I suspect this was the case with the wife who was behaving more independently than her husband liked.  I don't think the books were the cause of her behavior. 

I found out  from Crimson Angel that there is a loa named Marinette who is a Petro spirit in Voodoo.  Although I am more acquainted with Rada spirits who are associated with healing, I see nothing wrong with Petro spirits.   (See my discussion of Rada and Petro  here .) In fact, Marinette is associated with the Haitian revolution and she is said to be able to free individuals from situations that they want to escape.  I discovered that there is a novel in which the loa Marinette is the main character.  I intend to read it some time next month.

 I liked Crimson Angel more after doing the research on Marinette than while I was reading it.  When I finished it, I thought it was a well-told tale, but discovering a loa that I hadn't known about gave this novel additional value.