Zora and Me by Victoria Bond

Zora Neale Hurston loves a good story. She is such an imaginative storyteller that she even believes her own stories. Her latest story involves an old reclusive man that shape-shifts into an alligator and steals human souls.  However, when a prideful man named Sonny loses his arm to a mysterious giant alligator named Ghost while trying to capture him and a headless black man is found along the railroad tracks soon after, Zora and her friends set out to solve the murder. What they learn may change the town of Eden forever.

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Lexile: 860