Swamp Gas

The title substance has an unpleasant connotation, and there is a lot of unpleasantness in this debut novel, a mildly amusing sendup of Louisiana politics. In New Orleans, a canny ambulance-chasing lawyer, Lana Pulaski, runs for state attorney general. Grotesquely fat, her huge hairdo dyed a peculiar shade of red and her flamboyant clothes calculated to get attention, she decides the best way to curry support from the old-boy network is to marry senile Cajun judge Louis L'Enfant, an old reprobate who has been on the take for most of his career. The old man has a granddaughter, Scarlett L'Enfant, a greedy, thieving (she is selling off the judge's antiques while she waits to inherit) artist who produces quasi-pornographic paintings by smearing animal and human reproductive organs with paint and daubing them on canvas. There is also a drugged-out, self-styled hit man who kills a couple of innocent people and is then assigned to murder Lana. An exterminator called the Bug Man and other assorted misfits and failures round out the zany cast. Paolini's deft touch produces more than a few good lines: her campaign manager tells Lana: ""Corruption is the lifeblood of our political system. Without it the voters become complacent."" As Judge L'Enfant's past catches up with him, the action is fast and furious. None of the main characters are even remotely likable, which makes their bizarre behavior more pitiful than comic, but the book may garner votes from those who like their humor broad and their politics irreverent. (July)