Detective Dave Robicheaux's world isn't filled with too many happy stories, but Desmond Cormier's rags-to-riches tale is certainly one of them. Robicheaux first met Cormier on the streets of New Orleans, when the young, undersized boy had foolish dreams of becoming a Hollywood director. Twenty-five years later, when Robicheaux knocks on Cormier's door, it isn't to congratulate him on his Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Robicheaux has discovered...

After hearing an old schoolmate's deathbed confession, Dave Robicheaux begins a search for a prostitute he met decades earlier who had ties to the mob, an endeavor that proves dangerous in the wake of a series of murders and the sudden appearance of a troubled young woman.

Dave Robicheaux, the Louisiana cop who's easily one of the most complex and compelling protagonists in mystery fiction, confronts his own demons as well as a brutal adversary who might be the devil himself in this dark thriller. Robicheaux doesn't believe Tee Bobby Hulin, a drug addicted musical genius, has murdered a prostitute and a teenager. Burke looks to the lower depths to find his villain, and the creature that emerges, as if from some primordial...