A new true-crime book on the violent murder of Reena Virk, a 14-year-old Indian girl living on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, recently hit the stands. 1n 1997, Virk was lured to a popular hangout spot and then beaten, kicked and burned with cigarette lighters by seven girls and one boy. She escaped, only to be followed by two people who made sure she didn't survive. Her body washed up a week later. The book, entitled "Under the Bridge", got a pretty bad review in the NY Times. This murder, which happened in 1997, kicked up a lot of media on the violence of young women but mostly failed to raise the question of race -- focusing instead on the way Virk was overweight and didn't fit in with her peers. Here is an interesting piece on the way race was ignored during the media coverage of this case.

When this incident occured, I remember being fascinated by the hip hop references that these young Canadians were making, like that Reena tried to fit into the crowd by being more into hip hop and that the girls who killed her identified with mobster John Gotti, a la rap lyrics. Kelly Ellard, the alleged mastermind behind Virk's murder and the one who finished the job, recently was sentenced to life in prison after a third murder trial.