A mystery set in Prohibition-era Louisiana. Sam Simoneaux returns to New Orleans to start anew but soon finds himself investigating the disappearance of a little girl, joining her musician parents on a Mississippi steamboat hoping to unearth clues as they traverse the lawless hinterland. Gautreaux's previous novel "The Clearing" was chosen to launch the "Telegraph Book Club" and sold 28,000 in paperback and was heaped with praise from authors as diverse as Annie Proulx and Alan Warner.