Debbra J. Beckman

Ex-Confederate officer Vernon Carson has tried his level best to peaceably distance himself from the war. Especially from certain haunting memories. But the horror has found him again and moved in right next door. With clenched jaws and clenched fists, Vern accepts the challenge before him. He knows he must settle the score. He owes it to his slaughtered neighbor. He owes it to his savaged troops. But most of all, he owes it to himself. The dice have been thrown.

On November 29, 1909, police were called to a ramshackle home in East Orange, New Jersey, where they found the emaciated body of 24-year-old Oceana "Ocey" Snead facedown in the bathtub - dead of an apparent suicide by drowning. There was even a note left behind. But it would not take authorities long to discover that Ocey's death was no suicide. And Ocey's own mother and two aunts were far from the sorrowful caretakers they appeared to be.

Sheriff Landry’s calling to serve and protect his little Louisiana hometown has been challenged. As a cloud of superstitious fear descends upon the community, the combat veteran and his deputies set out, naturally, to do their duty and apprehend the slaughterer of innocents. But this is not an ordinary murder case, and the depth of the evil at work in the bayou community is so great that Landry may have to sacrifice everything he loves to stamp it out. Ride along in Ed Landry’s cruiser as he struggles with a case that threatens to redirect the very course of his life.