Die Upon a Kiss

Written by Barbara Hambly
Review by India Edghill

In 1830s New Orleans they don’t have cable TV, the Internet, or the WWF — but they do have opera! It’s the opening of the 1835 opera season, and rival impresarios offer competing productions. But this time, rivalry results in violence. After a late rehearsal, Belaggio, creator of the opera Othello, is attacked outside the American Theatre. Fortunately Benjamin January, a free man of color who’s been hired as one of the musicians, intervenes, saving Belaggio’s life. But that’s only the beginning of a series of attacks and murders that lead January to wonder if there’s more at issue than an objection to Othello’s subject matter or an overly-intense competition between theatres. When his friend John Davis, Belaggio’s rival producer, is accused of murder, January begins to investigate the crimes. But between long-forgotten scandal and current politics, clearing Davis’s name won’t be an easy task for January to achieve.

This is Benjamin January’s fifth foray into murder in antebellum New Orleans; this well-mixed jambalaya of opera, New Orleans history, and murder is just as engrossing as his previous cases.