Psychics & Soul Food #2
This lively and compelling mystery is set in a small town in Illinois in the 20’s. While author Wilkins names her fictional town Agate, if you’d like to orient yourself it’s fairly close to Joliet, outside of Chicago. The central character is the charming Nola Ann Jackson, who is working for a caterer and lives with her Aunt Sarah. Both women are psychics though Aunt Sarah has far more experience, and is known as a conjure woman. Both can see auras. I loved this aspect of their characters – it made them both more specific and more interesting.
The two black women are living in the 20’s, not long enough after the Civil War that relatives don’t remember “slave times.” However, the black culture in the town of Agate seems strong and vital. As the book opens, Nola is working an event at a new church in town run by a Bishop Ra. Nola’s antennae are up – she thinks there’s something phoney about him though she does think he some psychic ability. The only white woman in the place is an opera singer. The other white person is the man who provided funding for the church building.
As the women are packing up to leave, they meet the Bishop’s wife, who comes to thank them and to winkle a recipe out of Nola’s boss, Minty, who only gives it reluctantly. They go home exhausted, to awaken to the news that the opera singer has been murdered, and that a friend of theirs, Sam, has been arrested. The police are planning to move him to prison in Joliet as the last time a black man was accused of killing a white person, the KKK broke into the jail and lynched him.
His lawyer is an old drunk named Freddie, and Nola and her friends are not only sure that Sam is innocent, they are sure Freddie can’t handle the case. Before Sam leaves for Joliet Aunt Sarah makes him a “mojo bag” to wear and keep him safe while he’s in jail. Sam is still waiting for the Bishop to get him out, but it turns out the Bishop’s testimony put him there.
While Sam is up in Joliet, there’s another murder, and another friend is arrested, really putting Nola to work as she tries to clear her friends. What I loved about the book was the relationship between Nola and her Aunt, and the details of her awareness of people’s auras as well as the work that Aunt Sarah does. There’s a scene where the two expel a ghost from someone’s home that is one of the best of the whole novel.
The rest of the characters, especially the ones delineated at Bishop Ra’s church, are well done and the story really moves. It’s hard to put the book down. The combination of the unusual setting – the Midwest in the 20’s is not frequently covered in mystery novels – and the depiction of the town’s black culture make the book a real stand out. I was cheering for Nola to figure out her love life (reader, she does) as much as I wanted her to nail the killer. Which she also does. This was really a fun read despite some of the harsh details of life depicted – it’s Nola who makes the book shine. — Robin Agnew