Uncover a Criminal Conspiracy in New Southern Noir

The Queen City Detective Agency by Snowden Wright

Author Snowden Wright is a native son of small-town Meridian, Mississippi, familiarly known as Queen City for its “golden age” in the years between 1890-1930 when it was the largest city in the state and a center for railroads and manufacturing. In an interview from May 10, 2023 with the online Famous Writing Routines, he made the statement, “Growing up my main feeling toward Mississippi was an overwhelming desire to leave it.” He did leave home for an undergraduate education at Dartmouth College followed by graduate school at Columbia University garnering extensive writing experience in subsequent years until he returned to his home state. 

Queen City’s Rich History

Mississippi has a complicated heritage of simultaneously revering and regretting the past which may have resulted in the well-earned reputation for producing or nurturing an impressive number of great writers and renowned storytellers. They include the obvious giants of literature and history William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Shelby Foote, and Stephen Ambrose. Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffet was born in Pascagoula. Crime, mystery and thriller writers abound including Nevada Barr, John Grisham, Carolyn Haines, Chester Himes, Greg Iles, Thomas Harris and too many others to acknowledge here. 

Seemingly auguring Snowden Wright’s future, he was given the Storyteller Award as a kid at Strong River Camp for the yarns he spun for his bunkmates. He stated, “Thus, at that pivotal age, I faced a choice: grow up to be a pathological liar or grow up to be a paid pathological liar. The answer seemed clear.” His storytelling and gripping writing has already earned him a place at the table with the other Mississippi greats through his novels Play Pretty Blues, American Pop and the soon-to-be best-seller The Queen City Detective Agency.

This work of fiction was inspired by a murder trial prosecuted by the author’s father who was then serving as District Attorney. It’s an intricately plotted Southern Noir set in 1985. It seems the entire town is embroiled in a criminal conspiracy after Randall Hubbard, an ambitious real-estate developer who built strip malls in Black neighborhoods, is shot to death. 

Dixie Mafia (DM) member Lewis “Turnip” Coogan claimed Odette Hubbard, the victim’s abused wife, had hired him to do the hit but cancelled at the last minute. He accused Odette of doing the job herself. Turnip’s benighted confession was sufficient to put him in jail but while there, he took a long dive off the prison roof under highly suspicious circumstances. Odette was also imprisoned pending the completion of an investigation and expected to be released shortly, but before that could occur, she also met with an untimely death while in custody. 

Criminal Gang With a History Rooted in Racism

The Meridian Dixie Mafia specialized in recruiting foot soldiers for various criminal gang activities from underemployed, semi-literate white racist criminals and instilled in them a sense that they were part of a movement. Primarily involved in all aspects of bootlegging during prohibition, the DM had subsequently branched out and vastly expanded their illegal operations. 

Conveniently situated a two-hour drive from Birmingham, three from New Orleans and four from Atlanta, Queen City was an active participant in gambling, drug and sex trafficking, racketeering, contract killings and similar left-handed endeavors. While it wasn’t the case throughout the South, local members were frequently “former” Klansmen. Many of these men had been drafted into the US Army straight out of high school and sent to Vietnam where they learned to engage in combat with an often unseen enemy. Accustomed to following orders, they possessed few if any qualms about killing.

These civilian troopers included people like dimwitted Harold John who saluted a glossy framed photograph of Holocaust denier David Duke on a daily basis. Duke founded the Louisiana-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1974 and became its youngest Grand Wizard, subsequently serving as a Louisiana State Representative. Harold and a few pals hero-worshipped him. The identity of Meridian’s DM leader remained discreetly undisclosed, hidden by managerial layers under a strict ‘need to know’ policy and most certainly from the top echelon of the town’s elite.

Private Investigator Takes the Case

Clementine Rosemary Baldwin “Clem” is a sharply intelligent, disillusioned former police officer who resigned from the force to become a private investigator. Forming The Queen City Detective Agency she worked solo until hiring former Green Beret and high school football star Dixon Hicks as partner. Being a pragmatic Black female ex-cop detective in mid-1980s Mississippi who’d experienced near-constant hostility, belittlement and rejection in the field, Clem reasoned that to succeed in her line of work she needed “a prop” which would best be served by a white man. It worked! Her number of clients increased dramatically after Dixon joined her agency. The unanticipated bonus was friendship with a competent, intelligent man she could trust with her life. 

Clem’s early life had been a balancing act of trying to fit into the two disparate worlds of old and new South while not fully able to relate to either.  She never knew her mother Rosemary who died when she was born. Rosemary was Black from a poor family while Clem’s father Lauder Baldwin was from prominent, influential white landed gentry. She grew up in a large, beautiful home in an exclusive neighborhood where passersby all too frequently inquired, “Is your mother the maid here?” when she played on the expansive front lawn. 

The Baldwins were founding members of Lakeshoals Country Club where her father golfed and conducted business while she swam and enjoyed lunches at poolside. Clem was still a dues-paying member (#926) but seldom attended functions. Tall, handsome, green-eyed and charismatic Lauder Baldwin was a registered gemologist who owned a fine jewelry store and as a sideline was additionally a fence for purloined items. He served his first light sentence when his only child was seven. 

She was sent to live with her mother’s kin who loved her dearly but were discomfited to realize she did not like being poor. Lauder returned as an honest jeweler but is currently incarcerated for an unrelated crime. Clem compensates by drinking too much and eating too little but under the influence of a recent relationship with teetotaler Assistant District Attorney Russ Clyde is beginning to improve her unhealthy ways. He’s been the first suitor to be introduced to her mother’s relatives and although they are growing closer, the familial jury is still debating their opinions. Clem has some misgivings about an observed secret handshake culminating in linked pinkies between Russ and a college chum she regards as a known racist.

Hush Money and Hired Assassins

The action began when Turnip Coogan’s grief-stricken mother Lenora Coogan picked up the phone and hired these private investigators to find her son’s killers. Ironically, this poor white woman used the hush money paid to her by the Dixie Mafia to accept his death as suicide. She picked Clem knowing a Black woman would be one of the few people in Meridian without ties to the DM. 

His pregnant young widow, Molly Coogan, also got in touch anxious for her husband’s death to be ruled a murder as his insurance company would not pay out the $75,000 policy if he had committed suicide. The toxicology report Clem lifted from a spindle at the police department clearly showed old Turnip had been poisoned and was half dead before the ‘suicidal leap’. It cemented their theories he knew too much about his DM employers and their leaders.  

Arson, rising body counts, a non-fatal shoot-out at the lowlife haven John Wesley Hardin Club followed by a car bombing, poisonings, corrupt cops and executive-style shootings make The Queen City Detective Agency a dynamic mystery thriller. Until the final page, survival is uncertain for Clem Baldwin and Dixon Hicks who were clearly targets of hired assassins. 

Snowden Wright has written a rock-solid suspense-filled thriller with The Queen City Detective Agency. It is guaranteed to keep you glued to the pages and craving a sequel. Fans of James Lee Burke, John Grisham, Laura Lippman and Walter Mosley among others will be eager to read this and his other works.