Idris Elba as John Wesley Jumbie? Well, why not? A nice little cameo for him.....
Jumbie is one of the key characters in “Conspiracy of Angels”. He makes a dramatic appearance, and at the end of the story he exits with a bullet in his heart. He’s a negro of vast stature, brutal and yet very intelligent — and a worthy adversary for Martha. He is a freed slave who was active in the anti-slavery movement until he spotted opportunities for extracting large sums of money from slave-owning families and from the owners of slave trading vessels. He lives in some luxury, with his own carriage and a considerable bodyguard. As his affected name might imply, he sees himself as a righteous man seeking to undo the unspeakable evils associated with slavery — and he becomes the leading member of a cult called The Sons of Obeah. But then what starts as something designed to undermine evil becomes evil itself, as Jumbie and his friends embark upon kidnappings and murders. He first sees Martha as an enemy, but then when he discovers that she is herself heavily involved in the attempts to abolish slavery and the slave trade, the two of them come to an uneasy truce. In spite of warnings from Martha, Jumbie ramps up his activities and it becomes clear that his prime target is now General Sir Thomas Picton, in revenge for his “reign of terror” when he was Governor of Trinidad. Out of the blue, Martha’a help is enlisted by none other than the Prime Minister, who tells her that if Jumbie succeeds in assassinating Picton, and the news gets out that the assassin is a black man, that would set back the abolitionist campaign by at least a generation. The scene is set for a climactic end to the story on a dark night at Picton’s residence, Poyston Hall………
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