Now that the war is over, bitterness lingers along the Mississippi. Still, Luke Williamson, a former Union officer, and Masey Baldridge, a Confederate veteran, have established a truce of their own, based on honor and common interest. Baldridge had saved Williamson's paddle wheeler, Paragon, from disaster and proved that skills honed on the battlefield could be put to use for good, even by a man with a bad knee and a taste for whiskey. When a prostitute working on the paddle wheeler is found murdered, and Williamson's black first mate is arrested, the captain again turns to Baldridge for help. The police are certain that Jacob Lusk is the murderer, and there aren't many in Memphis who are willing to disagree. The search for the killer ranges from the Memphis waterfront to the nightspots of New Orleans, opens the barely healed wounds of war, and ultimately leads not only to a murderer but to a fortune in Southern gold.