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Hispanic Americans - Fiction & Literature, Multicultural Detectives - Fiction, Women Detectives - Fiction
Crimson Moon by Lucha Corpi — book cover

Crimson Moon

by Lucha Corpi
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Overview

"A woman's harrowing fall down the side of a weedy cliff has left her struggling for every breath. A discarded manuscript is found buried under rotting food in a garbage dump. Falsified identities and faces half-hidden in the shadows of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement threaten to be unmasked. Private Investigators Justin Escobar and Dora Saldana struggle through this web of bizarre clues in two cases they are working to solve. When these tangled threads lead them to a violent showdown involving F.B.I. misdeeds thirty years in the past, these two intrepid agents of Brown Angel Investigations find themselves in a deadly snare." Weaving the student movements at Berkeley, a serial rapist within the government's ranks, a militant Chicano "brown power" group in Denver, and even the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, Corpi once again pens an intriguing thriller that revisits one of the most disturbing chapters for the American psyche: the civil rights struggles and student revolts during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Synopsis

"A woman's harrowing fall down the side of a weedy cliff has left her struggling for every breath. A discarded manuscript is found buried under rotting food in a garbage dump. Falsified identities and faces half-hidden in the shadows of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement threaten to be unmasked. Private Investigators Justin Escobar and Dora Saldana struggle through this web of bizarre clues in two cases they are working to solve. When these tangled threads lead them to a violent showdown involving F.B.I. misdeeds thirty years in the past, these two intrepid agents of Brown Angel Investigations find themselves in a deadly snare." Weaving the student movements at Berkeley, a serial rapist within the government's ranks, a militant Chicano "brown power" group in Denver, and even the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, Corpi once again pens an intriguing thriller that revisits one of the most disturbing chapters for the American psyche: the civil rights struggles and student revolts during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Library Journal

Partners in Brown Angel Security and Investigations, Justin Escobar and Gloria Damasco (Black Widow's Wardrobe; Cactus Blood; Eulogy for a Brown Angel) become involved in a couple of murky cases dating back to the Chicano Civil Rights Movement in late 1960s Berkeley, CA. In one case, they look for a man, wanted for medical reasons, who was a charismatic activist at the time. In the other, potential partner Dora Salda searches for a missing writer whose apparently discarded manuscript details a contemporary rape. Furtive surveillance, bungled burglaries, bugged autos, and increasing violence mark the plot, but the prose lacks consistent clarity and transition. For series fans. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Partners in Brown Angel Security and Investigations, Justin Escobar and Gloria Damasco (Black Widow's Wardrobe; Cactus Blood; Eulogy for a Brown Angel) become involved in a couple of murky cases dating back to the Chicano Civil Rights Movement in late 1960s Berkeley, CA. In one case, they look for a man, wanted for medical reasons, who was a charismatic activist at the time. In the other, potential partner Dora Salda searches for a missing writer whose apparently discarded manuscript details a contemporary rape. Furtive surveillance, bungled burglaries, bugged autos, and increasing violence mark the plot, but the prose lacks consistent clarity and transition. For series fans. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Politically active Latinas at Berkeley in the '60s discover 30 years later that politics is always personal. Elizabeth Ortiz and Ramona Serna have been close friends since their days as college students and members of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. So when Liz, now a prominent member of the community, asks Ramona to drive to a deserted part of Oakland and drop off an important envelope, Ramona obeys without asking a lot of inconvenient questions. Hours later, however, Justin Escobar, another friend of Liz's and a partner in Brown Angels Investigations, is still waiting for the envelope to arrive when Liz calls him from Highland Hospital to say that Ramona's been seriously injured after falling down a cliff at the appointed spot. Liz hands the envelope to Justin personally at the hospital, explaining that she needs to know the identity of her daughter Irene's father, a man Liz knew at Berkeley but for some reason can't identify. Swallowing Liz's story, Justin begins to investigate a key to the safe and a man born Willie Ozuna but known as "Oz." Meanwhile, Dora Saldana, a potential third partner in Brown Angel, is looking for her friend's missing brother, Vincent Costantino, a writer working on a story that seems closely related to Liz and Ramona's personal history. Corpi (Black Widow's Wardrobe, 1999) draws a few compelling characters and family dynamics, but, unfortunately, they're obscured by prolonged and clunky exposition.

Book Details

Published
March 1, 2004
Publisher
Arte Publico Press
Pages
224
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9781558854215

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