When miserly landlord Henry Deutch is found dead from an apparent heart attack, no one is happier than Anna Young. It was Henry who evicted Anna's mother from his Catskill tenement, which eventually led to her death. Anna swore a blood oath of vengeance, but her alleged attacks were purely metaphysical. Yet some claim them mortally effective: those who frequent her tiny shop for love charms and protective amulets attest that Anna Young is a master of black magin. Now a politically ambitious prosecutor has filed first-degree murder charges against Anna, contending that her spell casting literally frightened old Henry to death. And though the public remains divided between those who believe in Anna's powers and those who think her a murderous fraud, Del Pearson, her court-appointed lawyer, is about to discover the truth: whether Anna Young is a harmless charlatan, a cold-blooded killer...or something quite different.