The Queen City Detective
Agency: A Novel
by Snowden Wright is set in early 1985 in Meridian, Mississippi. Like an onion,
this book is complicated with many layers. Racism, classicism, the Dixie Mafia,
and more play major roles in this novel.
Turnip Coogan had
been facing twenty to life for capital murder when he decided to flee the jail.
One of the trustees had left a window open, due to the brutal heat, and Turnip decided
to head on out that window. He forgot that the jail was on the roof of the courthouse.
Going out that window put him outside on the roof of the building on this
blistering hot January day.
Trapped on the
roof with nowhere to run, his plight becomes a spectacle to all, and a crowd
gathers below in downtown Meridian, Mississippi. Known to all as the “Queen’s
City” things are on an economic downhill slide no matter where you stand in the
city. Being on the roof of the courthouse makes it just a little more apparent.
Turnip is also
on a downhill slide and he knows it. He knows he has been put in this trap as
he, and his well-known connections to the Dixie Mafia, have been used against
him. He is a desperate man, powerless against what is happening, and pushed to
the edge, literally and figuratively. It is no surprise when he goes off the
roof and dies seconds later as gravity finishes the job started long ago.
It is just a few
hours later when Leonora Coogan, mother of Lewis “Turnip” Coogan, reaches out
to Clemetine Baldwin, bi-racial owner of the Queen City Detective Agency to get
the people who killed her son.
The next day, she
and her white partner, Dixon Hicks, drive to Lenora Coogan’s trailer to discuss
the situation. By now, everybody for 100 miles around has seen the video of her
son crashing to the sidewalk from the roof of the courthouse. She strongly believes
that he did not jump to his death.
She is sure he
was killed because the Dixie Mafia wanted to silence him for what he knew and might
say as he faced a possible murder conviction. While she doesn’t know specifics
about what her son did for them, she is sure he did some stuff and was important
to them, and that they did not want him talking about any of it.
While Clem knows
that the Dixie Mafia is blamed for anything and everything, she also knows that
they sort of exist and are ruthless at times. Mom had no idea what her son did
for them and, honestly, did not want to know as she got some good stuff out of
his work. That pipeline is cutoff with her son’s death so that factors in,
without a doubt, on her request for help now. But she is grieving and needs
help, can pay, and despite her subtle and not so subtle racism, Clem agrees to
take the case. Afterall, the racism is nothing new and Clem as decades of
dealing with it as she was born and raised here and what Lenora is saying is the
usual stuff.
What follows is
a complicated novel where some things, like allegiance to the Confederacy, are
proudly displayed, and other things, such as drug use and sexual favors in the
jail, are hidden from prying eyes. A complicated crime fiction read, the case
and those involved, go through a lot of twists and turns in a book that is well
worth your time.
One hopes that another
book in this series is coming as this one was very good and sets a strong
foundation for a possible series.
For another take
on the book, make sure you read Lesa Holstine’s August 2024 review.
Amazon
Associates Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4hyiS3T
My ARC reading copy came from the publisher, Harper Collins, through NetGalley last summer, with no expectation of a review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2025
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