A review by threerings
Sold Down the River by Barbara Hambly

4.0

I had a hard time buying into the premise of this book: that Benjamin January willingly goes "undercover" as a slave on a sugar cane plantation to find a murderer/saboteur. He does it for the freedom the money would give him and to keep innocent slaves from being killed for something they didn't do. But I had a hard time believing someone who was a slave as a child and then freed would willingly put himself in such a position, with so little motivation. To save someone he loved, yes, but, I don't know. So I was a bit disconnected from the plot at the beginning. But the depiction of slave life was well done and the suspense gripping towards the end. The vivid characters among the slaves really stood out as well. At the end of the book, I cried, so I guess I didn't remain detached after all. Not a perfect novel, but ultimately a very good one.