The story opens as a jury returns a not guilty verdict freeing Wayne Bardo in the death of Detective Sgt. Kevin Stuart. Stuart's partner, Lt. Burke Basile, is enraged, not only with the system, but also with Pinkie Duvall, Bardo's flamboyant attorney. Burke believes Duvall is the force behind the spreading corruption in the New Orleans PD, and that he is a major kingpin in the drug trafficking in the area.

While Burke is dealing with the verdict, his late partner's wife asks him to stay out of her life. Following this, he catches his wife in an affair with one of her co-workers. Inundated from all sides, Burke becomes a man with little to lose. Since the corruption seems to center on protecting Duvall, Burke begins to focus his rage on him. He resigns from the New Orleans Police Department in order to concentrate his energies on bringing down Duvall.

Determined to exploit any weakness, Burke soon finds that Duvall's wife Remy is probably his most vulnerable point. Although she is the wife of one of the most prominent attorneys in New Orleans, Burke is stunned to find she has no presence in the community. Kept as a trophy only, Remy is not permitted out of sight of Duvall's body guards. Duvall had become the legal guardian of Remy and her younger sister, and had married Remy after her graduation from a convent school. Understandably, an air of mystery surrounds her.

Burke conceives a bold plan. He kidnaps Remy and disappears with her to a fisherman's shack in the swamp. He does this to bring Duvall to him for an ultimate confrontation on his territory.

Fat Tuesday is a classic example of a plot driven story. Brown creates her characters, and adds texture to them slowly as the story line develops. She introduces secondary characters with the same flair and finesse. These characters subtlety assist in moving the story forward in a clever and sometimes poignant fashion. The story unfolds at an even pace while the author throughout maintains constant tension.

With so much very right about this book, I feel an obligation to explain why I did not assign it a 5 star rating. To me, parts of the resolution of the conflict were too contrived. While it might be argued that this was unavoidable, Ms. Brown is such a skillful writer that I thought she might handled it better.

Still, Fat Tuesday does deliver a high-tension drama in an colorful setting -- a drama filled with mystery, menace, gut-wrenching emotional conflict and some passion in the bayou.. While she may have distanced herself from her romance beginnings, Sandra Brown still remembers how to tell an exciting story.

--Thea Davis