Magic City Author:Jewell Parker Rhodes Tulsa, 1921: A white woman and a black man are alone in an elevator. Suddenly, the woman screams, the man runs out and the chase to capture and lynch him begins. Magic City weaves history, mysticism and murder into a tightly plotted tale of ordinary yet heroic characters. Joe Samuels, a young black man trying to be the next Houdini, mus... more »t solve the riddle of his brother's ghost and find a way to escape being lynched for a rape he did not commit. Mary Keane, a young white woman, must find a way to free herself from her own loneliness and fight to make townsfolk listen to her and exonerate Joe. Ghosts, magic, jail escapes and a visitation from Houdini create the backdrop for Joe's and Mary's journeys of self-discovery and racial understanding. A harrowing and mythic tale of dreams, magic and violence gone awry, Magic City leads the reader through twists and turns to a conflagration of destruction and revelation.« less