The novel is of investigative
crime fiction genre, entailing the main character of
Penn Cage. Cage travels back to his home town of
Natchez, Mississippi with his young daughter after the death of his wife. A successful novelist with a legal background, Penn finds that his father is being blackmailed over a long-forgotten murder by a criminal he never turned in to the police. While home, Penn is approached by the widow and daughter of a black Korean War veteran long-believed to have been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. Cage soon realizes that these two cases are inextricably linked, and have much more profound implications than he imagined. Joining forces with Caitlin Masters, a young newspaper publisher from the north, Penn confronts angry Klansmen, the secretive director of the FBI, a guilt-ridden black policeman, and his old high school love in his quest to penetrate the layers of mystery that hide the truth about a small Southern city. ==Characters==