FAT TUESDAY

Mega-selling Brown (Exclusive, 1996, etc.) returns, this time with a tale of murder, mayhem, and the battle of the sexes set in sleazy, swampy, sweaty New Orleans. Burke Basile is a rare commodity in present-day New Orleans— an honest cop—and when his partner (and closest friend) Kevin Stuart dies during an investigation, his life falls apart. In rapid succession, he leaves his wife Barbara (with whom he's never really been in love), quits his job at the NOPD, and vows to seek revenge on the man he blames for Kevin's death: prominent defense attorney/crime-lord Pinkie Duvall. Basile decides that the surest way to get at Pinkie, who's probably the best connected, most protected hard-core criminal in the Big Easy, is through his beautiful wife Remy, whom Pinkie rescued from a life of squalor and poverty and transformed into his own private plaything. But behind the facade, Remy has a mind of her own and a reason for tolerating her husband: As long as she's with him, she can care for the only person she's ever loved, her younger sister Flarra. After a crazy hoax—involving a child molester named Gregory who owes Basile a favor—Basile ends up in hiding with Remy, whom he's kidnapped, at his secluded, rustic cottage. Meanwhile, back in the city, Pinkie and his stooge Wayne Bardo are on a rampage, determined to find Basile and Remy and, now that Remy's been ``tainted'' by her association—even against her will—with another man, to kill them both. In isolation, Basile and Remy find that they have a lot more in common than a hatred of Pinkie, and by the time the situation comes to its inevitable conclusion, plenty of heads have rolled. No surprises here, but Brown's readers will find this Mardi Gras extravaganza more than satisfying. (First printing of 500,000; Literary Guild main selection/Doubleday Book Club selection)