This is a Western mystery story about murder and grief and conspiracy and the dogged determination of two old friends to catch the people who have committed many terrible crimes against them. It takes the reader from a small western town through the great cities of Kansas City and St. Louis of the 1880s to a romantic but tension-filled voyage down the Mississippi during the heyday of the great Mississippi River paddlewheel steamers. In New Orleans, the mood is one of danger and grim pursuit, as the protagonists wend their way through a tangled web of intrigue and death set against the colorful background of the festival of Mardi Gras to a final, violent confrontation with two vicious criminals on the waters of the mighty Mississippi.