TALBA WALLIS, AKA THE BARONESS DE PONTALBA

She has three names and two sets of clothes, four different professions, precious few scruples about breaking the law, and a perennially nagging mama. A girl who came into the world named Urethra just has to have attitude. And attitude's the first thing you notice about the Baroness de Pontalba, as she calls herself in her night mode as a glamorous poet and performance artist. By day, she'd be a humble private eye if she had an ounce of humility.

When required, she's an office temp because who'd suspect her of ransacking the boss's hard disk while everyone's on break? Or carrying a purseful of electronic bugs? She's got what her mentor called the "right demographics" for spying without getting noticed--she's young, African-American, female, and dresses like a Catholic school girl. Her fourth profession?

Computer genius. Hardware, software, code-slinging, hacking--you name it, she can do it. At home, she has an entire closet full of white blouses and navy skirts for her day gig and another of flowing silks in fabulous colors for her stunning night persona. Who'd imagine such a complex, independent woman would live with her mother? Talba does.

Miz Clara calls her "Sandra" most of the time, never "your grace," like most of her admirers. It's hard to get respect from Miz Clara. She thinks there are only three suitable professions for a child of hers--doctor, Speaker of the House, and president. So Talba doesn't have to use her computer skills to bring in money and prestige--Miz Clara's never going to be happy anyway. Instead, she searches for other people's answers--and her own as well, which, perhaps, is the point.

It all began in 82 DESIRE, with her obsessive need to find the heartless doctor who talked Miz Clara into naming her baby girl Urethra.

In LOUISIANA HOTSHOT she discovers she knows nothing at all about her father--even whether he's alive or dead. And in finding her answer, she uncovers further mysteries in her own life--but those are for other books

Talba came to be in an unusual way, perhaps, for a fictional character--she was born of woman like the rest of us. In other words, Miz Clara came first. The seed was planted one quiet Sunday night when my husband and I stepped out to a neighborhood restaurant to discover a poetry reading in progress.

A young black woman read--a poet named Mada Plummer--and I can see her now in a white blouse and navy skirt, though I've no idea what she really wore. She read a poem called, "How Did She?", a work celebrating a mother who accomplished wondrous things against tremendous odds. I couldn't help thinking: What would it be like to have a mother like that?

Somehow, in that subconscious place where ideas are formed, the notion of Miz Clara took root and surfaced when I began work on 82 DESIRE. I started out to write about a woman who was deeply bonded with her mother, and lived with her. That's Talba all right--she's deeply bonded--but it sure isn't smooth sailing. The plain fact is, the leaf doesn't fall far from the tree, and Miz Clara's a piece of work--nothing likle the saintly mom of Plummer's poem. Such, I'm afraid, is the creative process. Talba comes by her saltiness "right honestly", as my own mama used to say.

DETECTIVE SKIP LANGDON

She's possibly the most striking looking cop in New Orleans--six feet tall, tumbling brown curly hair, green eyes, and overweight. And she has one of the most curious backgrounds: former debutante and Carnival queen, Tulane flunkout, boozer, doper, all around screw-up. and daughter of one of the City's most prominent doctors. She just never felt at home in the Garden District with all those little bird-like women and heavy curtains, pushy parents who used her for their own social advantage, and the mass of Southern manners and mores she was expected to know without being taught.

So she rebelled. Big-time. But one day she stopped a purse snatcher, and it occurred to her there was one job where her size might come in handy, and which would have a further advantage--it would really scandalize her parents. She marched right down and became a New Orleans police officer, then proceeded to do her best to prove the old adage that cops and criminals are two sides of a coin--she still doesn't care much for rules, and she still takes the occasional toke. Her private life? It gets increasingly complicated with each book. For openers, her best friend is her gay landlord, Jimmy Dee Scoggin, and he hates her boy friend, documentary filmmaker Steve Steinman. There's a lot more going on among Skip, Jimmy Dee, police psychologist Cindy LouWootten, and a handsome musician named Darryl Boucree, who also happens to be Talba Wallis' boy friend, but that could fill volumes--and does.

In some ways, Skip is my alter ego--the main way, I think, being the feeling we both have of being an alien in our hometowns. Then, too, I can't really deny having outlaw tendencies. I've tried to build on her character with each book, enriching her relationships and watching her grow from rookie to smart cookie. In the first book, NEW ORLEANS MOURNING she's about as green as they come. Three or four books later, she's a department superstar (which has its own attendant problems).

You can pick up any one of the series and get what's going on, but I think its more fun to start with the first and watch her life unfold.