Saturday, February 22, 2014

THE SECRET OF MAGIC by Deborah Johnson



This is a wonderful book!  The book jacket does not do it justice.  I almost didn’t buy it. Then I started reading and couldn’t put it down.  The writing reminds me of THE HELP or TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD or IN COLD BLOOD or even MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL – all great books.
A black war hero is returning home to Mississippi after WWII when he is beaten to death and dumped in the river.  The story concerns the hero’s father and the two women – one white, one black – who want to see justice served in a segregated Jim Crow South. The characters in this book are real people (fictional) who are shown in both their goodness and their fear, their needs and their disappointments, their triumphs and their failures.  The town of Revere, Mississippi, is as much a character as the people who populate the town -  the District Attorney, the sheriff, the white lawyer and the black lawyer, the erstwhile lover and his wife and son, the maybe murderess and the ever present sense of fear and “place.”
The story is riveting. You will not be disappointed.  Book groups will find a wealth of topics to discuss.
5 of 5 stars

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