The Wrong Side of Revelry: A Novel of Mystery, Murder, and Mardi Gras

The Queen of the Rex Ball at New Orleans' raucous and world-famous Mardi Gras-beautiful, vibrant, and dressed in an ivory silk lamé gown with chevrons and gold beading-collapses and dies. Was foul play involved? Jenna Depreaux, a maiden in the Queen's court, is rich, popular, and jealous. By any measure -birth, social standing, looks-she should have been selected queen. Or so she believes. Is there blood on her hands? Detective Decker O'Day is on the case. A tough kid from the Irish Channel, he is the son of a cop who was beaten to death on the job and a mother who lost her way to alcohol and promiscuity. He teams up with Detective Gail Waites. She carries her own baggage: a Black woman and a lesbian, her daughter is found dead under mysterious circumstances-nude and drugged, and dumped outside University Hospital. Meanwhile: Two gunmen kill fifty-three souls at a Jewish Synagogue in town. A popular anchor at the local TV news station disappears without a trace. A woman is killed when