When last seen in The Glass Rainbow, the previous book in the Dave Robicheaux series, Robicheaux was recovering in a New Orleans hospital from a near-fatal bullet wound. Immobilized and heavily medicated by morphine, he was visited there by a beautiful Creole woman named Tee Jolie Melton. After she's gone, his fond, hazy remembrances of her are rekindled by one song, "Creole Belle" on the iPod that she left behind. Now obsessed by the song and thoughts...

A deathbed confession from an old schoolmate resurrects a story of injustice, the murder of a young woman, and a time in Robicheaux's life that he has tried to forget. Robicheaux and his half-brother, Jimmie, met Ida Durbin on the beach in Galveston. Jimmie fell in love, not realizing that she was a prostitute with ties to the mob. Now, decades later, when Robicheaux begins asking questions about her, he finds himself investigating a series of horrifying...