Set in the steamy, gritty city of New Orleans in 1971 where the mob ruled, Nick Noelle, a newly retired detective from Houston, returns home to settle his affairs with his dying mother. Already bored with retirement, he stumbles upon an unfolding serial killer case darker and more sinister than any he had known. While visiting his departing mother, he finds a disturbing set of diaries that recorded her tragic life. Horrified by what he reads, he is stricken with guilt, fear, regret and despair which lure him into a pit of self-destruction. As he struggles with addictions to alcohol and gambling in a city that thrives on vices, he is in danger of losing his wife, his mind and worse, his own life.