When Dave Robicheaux discovers that Megan Flynn and her brother Cisco are back in town, his well-honed instinct for trouble is aroused. He remembers how their father had been killed by the Klan and the perpetrator never brought to justice. Then two boys are brutally murdered after allegedly raping a black girl, and an eye-witness describes one of the murderers as Harpo Scruggs, a government informant at the time of Jack Flynns death. Harpo's re-emergence, together with Megan and Cisco, stirs within Robicheaux a deep and irreversible need to resolve the past.