Other Fantasy Fiction Categories, Detective Fiction, Hispanic Americans - Fiction & Literature, Multicultural Detectives - Fiction, Women Detectives - Fiction

Black Widow's Wardrobe

Name: Black Widow's Wardrobe
Author: Lucha Corpi
ISBN: 9781558852884

by Lucha Corpi

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Overview

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. In this third in a series, Oakland private detective Gloria Damasco witnesses a murder attempt on a woman recently released from prison ... A nicely curlicued plot — delving backward into family, history, and mysticism — keeps the pages flying. Strongly recommended — Library Journal. Gloria's third adventure is part mystery, part history, part travelogue, part spiritual speculation - a busy, many-layered invention - Kirkus Reviews.

Synopsis

"Was it a spectre from the past, some Aztec revenant that had inspired the "Black Widow" to kill her husband? Or did these chilling murders have more to do with the rights of property and inheritance, and mere greed? Who better than Gloria Damasco, that indomitable detective with a flair for clairvoyance, to unravel this intricate and pulsing plot, which winds its way from an exotic Day of the Dead celebration in San Francisco to the even more exotic sites and customs of Tepozotlan, an Indian village high in the mountains above Cuernavaca? Part thriller, part exploration of myth and history, Black Widow's Wardrobe is a page-turner."--BOOK JACKET.

Library Journal

In this third in a series, Oakland Hispanic private detective Gloria Damasco (Cactus Blood) witnesses a murder attempt on a woman recently released from prison. Licia, the "Black Widow," killed her abusive husband and served her time, but now she believes herself to be the reincarnation of an Aztec woman who betrayed her people to Cort s. Gloria pursues information about Licia and the people connected to her: her brother-in-law, her evasive lawyer, the adminstrator of her business affairs, the clairvoyant she befriended in prison. A nicely curlicued plot--delving backward into family, history, and mysticism--that keeps the pages flying. Strongly recommended. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Eighteen years ago, Licia Román Lecuona went to prison for killing her husband when an all-male jury didn't buy her story of nonstop mental and physical abuse. Now that she's served her time, though, the woman called Black Widow seems to be more victim than aggressor—or at least that's how it seems to Oakland shamus Gloria Damasco (Cactus Blood, 1995, etc.), who first encounters Black Widow when she's been wounded with a knife just after the celebration of the Day of the Dead. Industrialist Michael Cisneros, who served as executor for the will that left Licia wealthy enough to be worth abusing, hires second-sighted Gloria to find out who's trying to kill Licia. But even before the two haunted women meet, the case is muddied (not for the last time) by the news that Licia considers herself a reincarnation of Malintzin Tenepal, La Malinche, the native woman who, given as a gift to the conquistador Cortés, helped him subdue a nation to her everlasting sorrow. Was it La Malinche who raised the weapon against Licia's intolerable husband? Why is someone now following Gloria's every move? What secrets will a trip to Mexico reveal? And how is Licia, in a terrible final parallel between her life and La Malinche's, connected to a ruthless baby-selling racket? Gloria's third is part mystery, part history, part travelogue, part spiritual speculation—a busy, many-layered invention stuffed within an inch of its many lives.