This terrific thriller outstrips its genre label giving a rich, sardonic and terrifying portrayal of contemporary America and the Louisiana setting is as charged as an electric storm. Sonny Marsallas, a New Orleans street hustler turns up in New Iberia and entrusts Dave Robicheaux with a mysterious notebook. A series of violent events ensues. Sonny's girlfriend is killed for what she knows...and the motive for her murder is only the first of the answers that Robicheaux is going to have to learn if his own life is not to be forfeit. Why do a bunch of leftist South American guerillas know Sonny as Red Angel? Why is the Mob out to acquire a piece of New Iberian swamp and might Sonny this time have pushed his wheeler dealing one step too far?