America's finest crime writer returns to Louisiana with his Great creation, Detective Dave Robicheaux.

When Dave Robicheaux discovers that Megan Flynn and her brother Cisco are back in town, his well honed instinct for trouble is aroused. Drawn as ever to those whom he feels need protection, he remembers how their father, a known communist, had been killed by the Klan and the perpetrator never brought to justice. Although both children had gone on to achieve success in their careers - Megan's photographs of the casualties of war have graced the covers of Time Magazine, and CISCO is a wealthy film director - Robicheaux perceives that their veneer of surface respectability disguises murky depths.

Then 2 boys are brutally murdered after allegedly raping a black girl, and an eye witness describes 1 of the murderers as Harpo Scraggs, a Government informant at the time if Jack Flynn's murder. Harpo's re-emergence, together with Megan and Cisco, stirs within Robicheaux a deep and irreversible need to resolve the past.

In this complex and deeply compelling novel, James Lee Burke weaves a web of plots and subplots involving characters as rich and as perfectly observed as any in his previous novels. This is a novel about what it truly means to be black or white, to be politically disposable or indispensable. Dense with passion and compassion, Burke's writing simply gets better and better.