Lt. Dave Robicheaux, a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana, is trying to associate the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie (Baby Feet) Balboni, who's co-producer of a Civil War film. At exactly the exact same time, after Elrod Sykes, the celebrity of the movie, reports finding another corpse in the Atchafalaya Swamp nearby the movie place, Robicheaux starts another evaluation, believing the corpse are the remains of a dark man he saw being murdered 35 years before.