New Orleans Mourning

Because of her connections at the highest social level of socially obsessed New Orleans, Policewoman Skip Langdon is assigned by her Chief to investigate the murder of Chauncey St. Amant, who, in all his golden splendor as Rex, King of Carnival, has been shot to death during the Mardi Gras parade.

Skip approaches the assignment with very mixed feelings. She does not know the St. Amants. Chauncey's daughter Marcelle was her schoolmate. She certainly has surer entree into the Boston Club society world than her fellow cops. But Skip knows that her colleagues resent her for that very reason, and she knows, too, that to the St. Amants and their kind, she is an outsider.

Skip Langdon being what she is, she is all the more determined to prove both to the police and to her social climbing parents, who are literally repelled by her choice of career, that she can succeed.

As she doggedly follows unexpected rumors and boldly trades on old acquaintances, unraveling tangled clues and bringing to light ancient secrets, Skip uncovers the roots of the tragedy that dooms the glittering St. Amant family.