Regina Robichard is a young, idealistic black lawyer working for the NAACP and her mentor/boss, Thurgood Marshall shortly after the end of World War II. Marshall receives a lot of mail, but one letter in particular touches Regina.
One of her favorite childhood authors, M.P. Calhoun, has written to ask Marshall to investigate the death of a young black soldier on his way home from the war to small town Revere, Mississippi. Enclosed is a photo of the young man with his father, and Regina latches on to it as a talisman, determined to find justice in the deep South.
Regina has her own interesting history. She never knew her father, he was lynched before she was born and her mother became a political activist. But she remembers with great fondness the book she read and reread as a child, “The Secret of Magic,” a tale of murder and a magical forest.
Living in New York City does not really prepare her for life in rural Mississippi and how blacks are treated. But Regina perseveres, despite threats, another murder and a vicious attack in her quest for fair treatment for a minority many Mississippians still feel they own.
This is fast reading that tugs at the heart with reminders of how much things have changed, and how much maybe they haven’t. My love affair with Amy Einhorn books continues.
3/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
THE SECRET OF MAGIC by Deborah Johnson. Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam; First Edition edition (January 21, 2014). ISBN 978-0399157721. 416p.
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