Description: 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 realize 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.
Brief description: Ron Butler is a Los Angeles-based actor and voice artist with over a hundred film and television credits (playing everything from brooding doctors to screwball hipsters). Most kids will recognize him from the three seasons he spent on Nickelodeon's True Jackson, VP. Ron works regularly as a commercial and animation voice-over artist and has voiced a wide variety of audiobooks. He is a member of the Atlantic Theater Company and an Independent Filmmaker Project Award winner for his work in the HBO film Everyday People. Originally from the Bahamas, Ron grew up singing calypso onstage with his father (the country's number-one recording artist) before touring (and recording) in Europe with a jazz band. In his spare time, he impersonates the president while playing the ukulele.