by Claire A. Murray

This week we have a review of the first in a new series, Murder at the Wham Bam Club By Carolyn Wilkins, along with an interesting interview with Carolyn. Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of the book and a link to purchase it.

Murder at the Wham Bam Club by Carolyn Wilkins
Review by Claire A. Murray

Nola Ann Jackson’s parents died from yellow fever in 1915, and she was brought to the Phyllis Wheatley Institute for Colored Girls in Agate, Illinois. The teenager rebelled against the institute’s restrictions under founder and headmistress Mrs. Sallie Wyatt. Nola ran away to marry her beau, became a widow six months later when he was killed by a German artillery shell in the Great War, and eventually returned to Agate to live with her Aunt Sarah.

It’s 1922 when Murder at the Wham Bam Club introduces the reader to Nola, now 22, and her aunt. Aunt Sarah’s psychic abilities give her the ability to see the past, and her healing herbs and incantations assuage physical and emotional wounds. Nola has her own psychic power of seeing auras, but her ability doesn’t match Aunt Sarah’s.

Nola rescues Mrs. Wyatt, her former head mistress, from a jazz player who pushed her to the ground after they argued about his hustling for the Wham Bam Club in front of the Wheatley Institute. With Aunt Sarah’s help, Nola learns the reasons for Mrs. Wyatt’s strictness and her distress over a missing girl, Lilly Davidson.

Nola agrees to help, and in her search for the missing girl enters a world of sketchy characters, many connected to the Wham Bam Club. Keeping her part-time job as a waitress in a black-owned catering business while exploring Lilly’s connection to the Club presents challenges. And Nola’s search jeopardizes the catering company’s business with white clientele.

Many characters represent the good, the bad, and the greedy side of life in segregated Illinois under prohibition, the Ku Klux Klan, and politicians who hide secrets and back candidates for reasons not always in their constituents’ best interests.

I highly enjoyed Murder at the Wham Bam Club as both a well-developed mystery and a peek into our segregated past. Carolyn Wilkins does not gloss over the ugly side yet never resorts to using either crude language or euphemisms. She deftly explores and exposes the difficulties of life for Black people and their segregated lives, while demonstrating that their values and goals are no different from those of the white community. This was a well written yet fast read with substance.

Claire A. Murray is an Arizona fiction writer who paints for inspiration. Play the Hand You’re Dealt is her short story collection, and she’s completing a suspense/fantasy novel so she can return to her trilogy and two novels awaiting revision. Find her at cam-writes.com.

Interview with Carolyn Marie Wilkins:

KRL: How long have you been writing?

Carolyn: I’ve always loved writing and storytelling, even as a little kid. However, I did not publish my first book until 2004, so about 20 years.

KRL: When did your first novel come out, what was it called, and would you tell us a little about it?

Carolyn: My first book was a singing textbook I wrote in connection with my day job as a professor at Berklee College of Music. To my surprise, I enjoyed writing the anecdotes and teaching stories I put in the book way more than I thought I would. Emboldened by this, I wrote two memoirs about my family, which were published by the University of Missouri Press.

After writing these books, I was eager to just “make things up.” I wrote my first murder mystery, Melody for Murder, in 2012. It’s about an African American woman who teaches music at an inner city community college on the South Side of Chicago who has to get her favorite student out of a serious jam.

KRL: What brought you to choose the setting and characters in your latest book/series?

Carolyn: My new book, Murder at The Wham Bam Club, is the first of three books in my Psychics and Soul Food Series. The book is set in a fictional mid-size city in Southern Illinois. The time is 1922, an intense time in the history and in the lives of the African American community I write about. There’s Prohibition, rampant lawlessness, a major shift in many of our values and attitudes. The KuKlux Klan is a major political power in town, racism is engrained in the social structure, and segregation is the norm by law and by custom.

KRL: Do you write to entertain or is there something more you want the readers to experience from your work?

Carolyn: First and foremost, I write to entertain. There’s enough trauma and drama in the world as it is! That said, I want people to feel a connection with my African American characters – learn about what their lives were like, and savor their joys as well as their sorrows.

KRL: Do you have a schedule for your writing or just work whenever you can?

Carolyn: When I have a deadline, I write every day. When I don’t, I’m a bit more sporadic.

KRL: What is your ideal time to write?

Carolyn: Mornings are best, while my mind is fresh.

KRL: Do you outline? If not, do you have some other interesting way that you keep track of what’s going on, or what needs to happen in your book when you are writing it?

Carolyn: My contract with Kensington Press requires me to submit an outline months before the first draft is due. At first, I worried that outlining the plot would be a barrier to creativity, locking me in to a rigid and predetermined form. However, I’ve found the process to be enormously helpful for mystery writing. I know where I’m going to plant clues, when the next body appears, etc.

KRL: Did you find it difficult to get published in the beginning?

Carolyn: Absolutely!

KRL: Do you have a great rejection/critique or acceptance story you’d like to share?

Carolyn: Ugh – I’ll just say my current book was rejected many, many (many) times before it finally found a home!

KRL: Most interesting book signing story-in a bookstore or other venue?

Carolyn: The most fun I had at a book signing was when I combined it with a live concert I gave with my jazz band. I read excerpts from the book, then alternated the readings with songs I’d written related to the story. Big fun!

KRL: How fun! What are your future writing goals?

Carolyn: I have two more books in this series. At the moment, I am hard at work finishing up the rough draft of book #3.

KRL: Who are your writing heroes?

Carolyn: In mystery writing, I take my hat off to the pioneers in black mystery fiction – Walter Moseley, Eleanor Taylor Bland, Chester Himes and Barbara Neely, to name a few. Outside of mystery writing, my overall hero in writing and in life is the great Maya Angelou.

KRL: What kind of research do you do?

Carolyn: I do a fair amount of research. Back in the day, I used print books, mostly history and the vintage picture collections put out by Acadia Press. These days, a lot of this material is available on the Internet. Many university and public libraries also have wonderful collections of old pictures, letters and newspapers of the era.

KRL: What do you like to read?

Carolyn: At the moment, I’m really into reading narrative nonfiction – Erik Larsen, David Grann, etc. I recently finished Imani Perry’s brilliant essay collection Black In Blues, which I enjoyed very much.

KRL: What are your favorite TV shows or movies?

Carolyn: Bottom line, anything with a good story! I’m a big fan of British murder mysteries, old and new. Classics like Dame Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple. Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes. Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Outside the mystery genre, I loved the blend of paranormal, jazz and black history in Sinners.

KRL: I love Jeremy Brett! Have you any advice for aspiring or beginning writers?

Carolyn: Persevere! Understand that it’s probably going to take a while before your work gets into print.Find a balance between being receptive to criticism and just going along with what people tell you. Trust your gut, and above all, find a way to enjoy the process!

KRL: What is something people would be surprised to know about you?

Carolyn: I recently finished a three-year certification course in Buddhist Mysticism.

KRL: Where can our readers find you online?

Carolyn: I’m on Facebook and Instagram. But the easiest way to get in touch with me is to visit my website CarolynWilkins.com.

You can click here to purchase this book from Amazon.

To enter to win a copy of Murder at the Wham Bam Club, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “wham bam” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen September 6, 2025. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please include your mailing address in case you win. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

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