When a movie crew arrives in New Iberia to shoot a Civil War epic, Detective Dave Robicheaux finds that it's not just the bayou's living inhabitants that are being disturbed. As he hunts a sadistic killer targeting young prostitutes, the skeletal remains of a black man are uncovered, evidence of a murder Robicheaux himself witnessed as a college freshman in the summer of 1957. And then, in the midst of a dizzying electrical storm, he comes face to face with the Civil War's ghostly legacy.