"NYPD Detective Sgt. Kathleen Mallory returns to her tiny Louisiana hometown after almost twenty years to solve the case that has obsessed her since childhood: the murder of her own mother...[O'Connell] conjures up a world of almost faulknerian richness and complexity...peopled with characters every bit as compelling as those on Mallory's usual Manhattan beat. O'Connell's imagination truly takes wing." People