Cactus Blood is Lucha Corpi's second mystery novel featuring Chicana detective Gloria Damasco. During the seventies, a young Mexican woman is raped, then exposed to pesticide contamination. Five men and two women save her and help her put her life back together. Sixteen years later, one of the men who helped her is dead, and two others have disappeared. The investigation of their disappearance leads from the 1973 United Farmworkers Strike and Grape Boycott in the San Joaquín Valley, to an old Native American ghost dancing site in the Valley of the Moon. Historic settings, California panoramas and Hispanic culture texture this suspenseful search for a ritualistic assassin. Cactus Blood is the second installment in this ongoing mystery series which highlights women's initiative, courage and intelligence.
"There are many more Americas than the dominant media would have us believe. The community in which Lucha Corpi's 'detective,' Gloria Damasco, lives in has roots going back centuries and Corpi paints it as she portrays Gloria-in all its vivid and vital complexity."
J. Madison Davis, President, North American branch of the International Association of Cri
