Advertisement

Review: Deborah Johnson's 'Secret of Magic' a multilayered mystery

 
Published Sept. 23, 2015

In its five-year history, the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction has had four winners: bestselling novelists John Grisham (twice) and Michael Connelly, Stanford University law professor Paul Goldstein and, most recently, Deborah Johnson.

Johnson, a former translator and editor, might not be as well known as the other three, but her winning novel, The Secret of Magic, deserves its place in that august company.

A multilayered mystery as well as an insightful historical novel peopled with vivid characters, The Secret of Magic is a thoroughly compelling read.

The novel opens in the fall of 1945. Lt. Joe Howard Wilson is riding a bus home to Revere, Miss., after earning a medal for his valor as part of an all-black unit in the still-segregated U.S. Army. From a stop about 30 miles away, he calls his father, Willie Willie, to let him know he's almost home.

But Joe Howard never makes it. He disappears from that bus, and his battered body washes up a few weeks later in the river that winds through his hometown. His death is ruled accidental, and that's that.

Until a few months later. Regina Robichard, a fledgling young lawyer, has a job she loves even though it's largely an entry-level slog: working for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in its New York office, under the direction of one of her heroes, Thurgood Marshall. Marshall's tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court lies decades in the future, but he has already gained fame for his unrelenting pursuit of justice for people of color.

Regina's interest in that pursuit isn't just academic. Her mother, Ida Jane Robichard, is a nationally known crusader for civil rights. Her father, Oscar, was lynched before she was born.

So she would have been interested in Joe Howard Wilson's case anyway. But the way it's brought to Marshall's attention rivets her: He receives a letter requesting an NAACP investigation of the death from one M.P. Calhoun.

Calhoun — the genderless M.P. stands for Mary Pickett — is the author of a novel also called The Secret of Magic. "It's damn famous, or at least it was," Marshall notes, unnecessarily given how much of a fan of the book Regina is.

Set in a small Mississippi town, Calhoun's book is about three young kids (a white girl, a white boy and a black boy) who try to solve a murder with the help of a wise old black man called Daddy Lemon. Laced with fairy-tale magic, it became a sensation for its story focusing on race and was banned in many states, including Mississippi; it also became a cult favorite and bestseller.

Calhoun, who is white, hasn't written another book since and lives a very private life in Revere. If all that reminds you just a little of Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird, it's supposed to.

According to the letter, Willie Willie has worked for Calhoun's family for many years, and she is making the request on his behalf and offering to pay the costs of the investigation.

Fired by both her indignation over Wilson's death and her thrilled anticipation of meeting Calhoun, Regina soon travels to Revere, given two weeks to dig into the case by Marshall. Willie Willie picks her up at the station, and he is obviously the model for Daddy Lemon, a dignified man brimming with knowledge of both the natural world and the intricate relationships that bond Southerners black and white.

Planning your weekend?

Planning your weekend?

Subscribe to our free Top 5 things to do newsletter

We’ll deliver ideas every Thursday for going out, staying home or spending time outdoors.

You’re all signed up!

Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started.

Explore all your options

Calhoun, or Miss Mary Pickett, as she's called, is something of a pistol, a woman accustomed to command but not above petty fits of pique, as when the well-dressed Regina shows up in the same pearl-buttoned cashmere cardigan she's wearing. Trying to navigate their ambiguous relationship occupies a lot of Regina's time. She's also reeling from the contrast between the world she knows in New York City and life in a small Southern town — everything from the way people leave every door unlocked to the casual public display of photos of lynchings in a whites-only diner.

Johnson also contrasts Regina's methodical, professional questioning of people who might know something about the case with her growing emotional involvement with Mary Pickett, Willie Willie and a handful of others close to them, some of whom seem to have walked right out of the pages of Calhoun's novel. Mysteries multiply around Wilson's death. "It's the secret of magic, known by the great Houdini himself," Mary Pickett tells Regina. "That's what Willie Willie always told me. Distract folks. Get them to look where you want them to look."

Johnson puts that secret to use, making us look where she wants us to look to build both a suspenseful mystery and a thoughtful glimpse into part of America's history of racism.

Contact Colette Bancroft at cbancroft@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8435. Follow @colettemb.