Millionaires Row: 9

A steamy 1930s Southern setting and the vast fortune of a tobacco empire drive this juicy tale of murder and greed, loosely based on the real-life death of an R.J. Reynolds tobacco heir. After seven years, Wyn Ainsley, 25, has returned to his North Carolina hometown, where his father, the sheriff, has just deputized him. Now it's Labor Day, usually an occasion for mirth because of the annual picnic sponsored by the Castletons, a venerable tobacco dynasty. This Labor Day's picnic, however, is soon marred, not only by the ``hot and sticky'' weather but by the discovery of the body of Kyle Castleton, 22, found shot to death. What at first appears a suicide becomes a scandalous murder case involving Kyle's new bride, former Broadway star Faith Venable, and the deceased's boyhood friend, Boyd Fredericks, who comes from humbler folk. Greed descends quickly upon the Castletons when they realize that controlling stocks, which can be inherited only by blood heirs, are at stake because Faith is pregnant. The community, which is dominated by the KKK and dependent on Castleton money, rallies around the family, destroying the lives and livelihoods of those who seek justice. As Wyn unravels a complicated network of lies, he gets a harsh education in the ways of power, love and the law as his own infatuation with Faith nearly blinds him to the truth. For good measure, Katkov (Blood & Orchids) orchestrates yet further deaths and couplings to flavor his melodrama as it careens entertainingly through scenes of overweening power, unscrupulous ambition and destructive sexual appetite. (Jan.)