A gruesome murder and suicide will pull Detective Jericho McComb on a journey through the snake-infested coastal delta scrub to the portals of privilege in Bay Lafitte, where money can buy anything--especially silence. But before McComb can solve the grisly crime, he must first unearth the secret that bound the victims in life, follow the trail of poems left as clues and, perhaps most challenging, confront the demons that threaten his own stability after twenty years in Homicide.