What would you do to uncover the truth? In the young adult novel, “I Don’t Wish You Well,” Jumata Emill explores this question with his protagonist, Pryce Cummings, who investigates a series of murders that rocked his small town five years earlier.
A freshman in college, Pryce utilizes his journalism training to find out if the masked killer was really who the police said it was. He sets out to make a true crime podcast for his university. Over a summer in his south Louisiana town, Pryce revisits the past, and along the way, uncovers the town’s secrets and comes to term with his own identity.
Baton Rouge native, McKinley High School and Southern University alumnus Jumata Emill has parlayed his own journalism career into writing captivating young adult thrillers. A former reporter at The Advocate, Emill covered both East Baton Rouge and West Baton Rouge parishes. His first two books, “The Black Queen” and “Wander in the Dark,” also take place in Louisiana and feature young Black sleuths who uncover mysteries.…