A Diamond Before You Die

Although Wiltz (The Killing Circle) sets his story just before and during Mardi Gras, peoples it with a wide variety of New Orleans high- and low-life and provides a couple of grisly murders, he hasn't written a very interesting book. Private eye and ex-cop Neal Rafferty, tailing the wife of socialite lawyer Richard Cotton, meets the cool, beautiful Lee Diamond, herself a P.I. being paid by Mrs. Cotton to follow Mr. Cotton. Lee has just karate-chopped a possible intruder into the Cottons' burning fireplace. After that dramatic start the book becomes a tangle of corrupt politics, drug- and porn-peddling, shifting alliances, a hot affair between Rafferty and Diamond and, most unfortunately, the story of Rafferty's attempts to avenge the five-year-old murder of his previous lover. The plot twists and violence are gratuitous, the talk is stilted, and the ending, meant to be ironic, is unsurprising. As portrayed here, New Orleans could be Cleveland during a dull week. (April)