New Orleans' private detective Luke Jacobs doesn't take too well to murders happening around him. He's been on a solid run of assisting local police with cases and maintains a strong reputation of doing good work. However, when a few bodies turn up in an area adjacent to his office and the post Katrina setting is still a disrupted mess, things get personal.

Luke is juggling a mixture of activities and has a recurrent dream of 19th century Southern struggles which keep playing in his consciousness. With all that's going on in the Crescent City, he has to cross a high wire and do a balancing act. On board is the motley crew of associates: Matt Harris, street wise rough cat of questionable integrity, Jan Martinez, college student beauty with a handle on things most folk ignore and Joe "Fingerprints" Sway, Luke's college buddy who has just moved to the area from New York and can't quite figure out the crazed maze of New Orleans' sociopolitical climate.

When the crimes are dropped onto the PI's lap, the city takes a pause from all of the standard activities, like Mardi Gras madness, to pay attention.