For Detective Dave Robicheaux, thoughts of the strange and violent summer time from his youth are best left alone.

But a dying man’s confession forces Robicheaux to resurrect a decades-old mystery using a missing female at its heart. Her name may or might not have been Ida Durbin, and Robicheaux’s half-brother, Jimmie, paid a brutal price for getting into her world. Today the truth will plunge Robicheaux into the manipulations of New Orleans’ wealthiest family members, into a complex romance of his own, and into hot quest for a killer growing his territory beyond the best Easy at a frightening pace.