THE RAP FACTOR
by Delacorta
The latest pop valentine from fantasist Delacorta (Alba, 1989, etc.) takes peerless ``cultural megamix'' Zulu, a p.i. with high-level police connections, from Miami's Fruit Market, home to peerless whore Mona, to voodoo haven Jamaica in a high-speed amble to discover why somebody killed Mona's sister, rap star Princess Bashma, and stole the master tapes of her new album Pure Steel—en route to killing her producer's secretary, Kate Henning, without leaving a mark on either victim. Could it be Kate's late father's connection to the suspicious 40-year-old death of suspected communist Erwin Zab, who's linked with his surviving sister Rachel to powerful black magician Papa Mosso, whose corpse alone can protect Zulu and his pals from Rachel's vindictive spells? Could it be...Satan? The reining in of Delacorta's usual mad fantasy to accommodate a detective plot is a compromise that will please nobody—neither fans of detection nor Delacorta's.