The mystery of private investigator and poet Lew Griffin is revealed in the concluding novel of this critically acclaimed and groundbreaking series. In his old house in uptown New Orleans, Lew Griffin is alone--almost. His relationship is falling apart, his son has disappeared. His good friend is shot interrupting a robbery. And Lew is directionless: he hasn't written anything in years; he no longer teaches; there's nothing to fill his days. Even the attempt to discover the source of threatening letters to a friend leaves him feeling rootless and lost. Now Lew Griffin stands alone in a dark room, looking out. Behind him on the bed is a body. He thinks if he doesn't speak, doesn't think about what happened, somehow things will be all right again. He thinks about his own life, about the other's, about how the two of them came to be here . . . In a story as much about identity as it is about crime, the answers to Lew's personal mystery begin to come clear and the highly acclaimed series builds to a brilliantly constructed climax.