EULOGY FOR A BROWN ANGEL

Corpi (Delia's Song—not reviewed) brings a Chicana feminist perspective to the mystery genre and does so with enough originality to overcome some stilted and murky writing. The story begins when civil-rights activist Gloria Damasco discovers the body of a murdered child on an L.A. street during a Chicano demonstration in 1970. Damasco has a ``dark gift,'' an uncontrollable extrasensory awareness that's stirred by this discovery and that will bring her back to investigate it time and again until the truth is finally revealed in 1988. When a gang member who may know the killer's identity is also murdered, Damasco works with a dying police detective to reveal a second killer, but that effort apparently closes all the doors to the mastermind behind the killings. She eventually returns to her family in Oakland, believing the crime will never be solved, although she keeps collecting information about the case over the years. Many readers will have pinpointed the killer's identity long before the heroine does, but one last nasty little secret is revealed in the bloody conclusion that adds an extra wallop to the convoluted goings-on. Awkward and slow moving at times, but still worthwhile mystery-reading.