Barbara Hambly's twelfth Benjamin January novel starts out in New Orleans in 1838. Kirsten Potter's performance highlights Hambly's meticulous historical research and gives immediacy to the period details. January, a free man of color who is a trained surgeon and a musician, loses his job after he helps a dying "fighting slave." To feed his family, January agrees to help planter Henri Viellard find a missing friend. Potter handles the horrors and brutality of a world of grave robbers and slave stealers with understated intensity. She gives the well-drawn characters individual personalities, including a young Edgar Allan Poe and Ganymede Tyler, the "good man Friday" of the title. January's experiences are fraught with violence, ferocity, and peril, and Potter makes them all feel real.
Pub Date: May 1, 2013
Duration: 10 hrs
Publisher: Dreamscape
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Novelist Benet Archdale and housemaid Carol Stratford are two young, single parents who have no reason to know each other. They become tangled in a nightmarish spiral of kidnap, fraud, family violence and death. Ruth Rendell creates psychological suspense in thrillers that are compulsively readable or, in this case, listenable. British actress Imelda Staunton's reading is perfectly paced, and the characters are well defined. You'll have a hard time turning it off.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 9 hrs
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America/ Chivers
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Emerson and Peabody are at it again! Uncovering antiquities takes a back-seat as the romantic archaeologists track down the master criminal who is stealing Egypt's ancient treasures. With the help of their precocious son, Ramses, the intrepid pair unravel this mystery in crowded bazaars, desert camps and the heart of the Black Pyramid. Barbara Rosenblat's reading fully measures up to the tale. She is a master of timing and nuance. Rosenblat's power for character interpretation has grown with each book in this amusing series. This is the best one yet.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 12 hrs
Publisher: Recorded Books Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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