DARKER ANGELS

More supernatural horror from Somtow (Vanitas, 1995, etc.), whose passion for splatterpunk effects have, thankfully, cooled of late. In 1865, when New York widow Paula Grainger goes to view the body of assassinated Abraham Lincoln, poet Walt Whitman makes her acquaintance. With Walt is a young soldier, Zachary Brown; together with Paula's eerie black servant, Phoebe, the three begin to relate the exploits of Paula's late husband, Aloysius. Certain African women, it seems, can transform themselves into leopards. Phoebe, whom Aloysius won in a poker game, is one such ``darker angel,'' supposedly capable of redeeming her people through the power of song. Zachary calmly continues to speak of wartime atrocities, supernatural events, his meeting with Walt Whitman (then a nurse in a hospital), and how his comrade Kaz was brought back form the dead by Joseph, an old one-eyed black shaman. Old Joseph's assistant was a young white boy, Jimmy Lee Cox; continuing the stories-within- stories format, Jimmy describes Joseph's experiences in New Orleans and during the slave revolt in Haiti. Joseph's final intent was to raise the black soldiers killed in the Civil War from the dead. Meanwhile, Aloysius's diaries reveal his futile attempts to reanimate Paula's dead children. Unfortunately, the ending, involving Lincoln and his sons, implodes through oversentimentality. Knotty, dark, nasty in places, and cleverly constructed, but diffuse and lacking propellant.