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After an elderly man with encroaching Alzheimer's disease confesses to his home attendant that as a long-ago junkie and petty thief he killed his partner in crime, police from the NYPD reluctantly dig up the community garden where the body is supposed to be buried. Instead of a dead man, they find the body of a carefully dressed ten-year-old boy. Tough-minded Detective Darlene O'Hara, last seen in the novel 'Shadows Still Remain', is on the case.

Raised by loving adoptive parents, San Francisco private investigator Wyatt Hunt never had an interest in finding his birth family-until he gets a chilling text message from an unknown number: "How did ur mother die?"The answer is murder, and urged on by curiosity and the mysterious texter, Hunt takes on a case he never knew existed, one that has lain unsolved for decades. His family's dark past unfurls in dead ends.

Louisiana businessman Jerry Earl Leland served only a fraction of his five-year sentence for white-collar crime, thanks to some political connections and a few greased palms. But he won't have long to enjoy his freedom. After Jerry Earl's early release, his wife, Margo--a much-married Garden District doyenne--throws an extravagant Get Out of Jail Free Party, complete with a Zydeco band, champagne ice luge, and waiters in ties and tails. The guest list includes many prominent New Orleans socialites, a swell as scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand and her best friend, Ava Gruiex.