Hulbert Footner

The Obeah Murders Hulbert Footner

Not much detective work, but plenty of amiable hokum about Phil Nevitt, a young New Englander working for a rum company after Prohibition who is sent to a Caribbean island to investigate a rival outfit. Annunziata may be small but it has everything -- sun, sand, a mountainous interior, a Creole aristocracy, cheerful negroes who chatter away in broken English, and a club for the dissolute whites who run the place, including the U. S. Administrator, Randal Trantor. Trantor is a rich drunk: his Creole offsider Bareda manages his many commercial enterprises, including the distillery.