The author of the critically acclaimed mysteries Cajun Nights and Blood on the Bayou once again returns to the irresistible world of New Orleans, with its rich ambiance of desire and dark drama, to tell a story of hidden secrets and murder. Dr. Kit Franklyn is sexy, smart, and a top criminal psychologist. She's also an amateur horticulturist, but when she decides to put a new rose trellis in her garden, she doesn't count on her dog Lucky discovering a human jawbone. Kit immediately calls her partner and friend, Chief Medical Examiner Andy Broussard, and his forensic skills are put to the test as he and his team slowly exhume the twenty-five-year-old skeleton of a young woman who clearly did not die a natural death. But exactly when was she murdered, and why? And, most important, who killed her? The trail leads Broussard and Kit back in time to a mysterious evening among friends at medical school over two decades before and a ruthless killer who continues to strike again and again in a pattern that begins to show a chilling logic.