Secret Service agent Clay Rodgers, returning to Biloxi after his brother is killed aboard the family yacht Cassandra, can't imagine what anyone had against inoffensive Robert--until traces of drugs aboard the boat link him to possible drug-dealing by his former employer, Cajun strip-joint king Antonio Brouchard, and a well- organized Vietnamese smuggling ring determined to kill off any informants interested in the reward Clay's advertised. As Clay resumes his guilty affair with Robert's former high-school girlfriend Linda, the obvious suspects cop pleas to lesser crimes--narcotics, assault, etc.--leaving one last ugly secret. Routine enough until the last 50 pages, when a rapid series of stings reminds you how surely Wilson juggled suspects and motives in Nightwatcher (1990). An author to watch.
