A CIA agent called Redding steps off a Learjet ready to explain to her boss how she keeps wrecking expensive shoes by killing arms dealing sheiks with the heels. The action then moves to Louisiana and we settle in for a feast in LOUISIANA LONGSHOT.

Fortune Redding now has a price on her head and is in hiding in the small town called Sinful whose main feature is a muddy bayou. She has to pretend to be a librarian and former beauty queen who has inherited a house. The creaking wooden building meets her approval and comes with an elderly hound and attic trespassers which turn out to be raccoons. From the moment of her arrival the local residents baffle her. Especially the older ladies of the town, who appear to run everything and who rival each other to acquire Sunday's batch of pies at the cafe. Churchgoing is a requirement but the Baptists race the Catholics to the café afterwards.

The deputy sheriff, Deputy LeBlanc, is called when the old hound digs up a human bone. The find triggers a sequence of events which lead to Fortune getting wet, muddy, nearly naked and shot at more than once, not to mention nearly eaten by an alligator. Her leaders, rather than partners, in crime are two of the old ladies who want to protect a friend from accusations of having killed her abusive husband. This friend, Marie, promptly goes missing and Fortune searches for Marie on swampy islands and in a seedy bar. LeBlanc has to wonder what a former beauty queen is doing getting into such trouble.

Jana DeLeon has given us a likeable cast, though Fortune really is not trying very hard to stay under cover or even close to it. The oozing, foetid swamp which permeates the tale is a character in and of itself, well enough written to stay with the reader when the book has been closed. Unfortunately, the hinted-at romantic potential never developed.