6. Whisper to the Black Candle: Voodoo, Murder, and the Case of Anjette Lyles by Jaclyn Weldon White

Ah, the first true crime book of the year. I usually read true crime in the summertime as my Summer Book Junk Food, but one of my coworkers read it and told me it was good.

It’s a compelling story. Anjette Lyles lived in Macon, Georgia in the 1950’s and owns/runs a popular restaurant downtown. She’s popular. Everyone loves her. They all eat at her diner. Over a period of time she poisons two husbands, a mother-in-law and one of her daughters. She goes down for murder, and was supposed to get the death penalty, but times as they were, people were freaked out about it because she would have been the first white female to be executed in Georgia. So she’s decalred insane (which she pays up, big-time.) and there you go.

It was crazy to me that she was into voodoo. Unfortunately the voodoo part in the book isn’t really investigated much. It mentions that she had parephenalia (roots, potions, candles) but it never mentions how she got invoved in it. This lack of voodoo stuff (seeing as how it’s mentioned IN THE TITLE) was the only disappointing part of the book.

It’s a quick read. No draggy slow spots. Even the court scenes are quick.

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