Growing up in the rural Southern hamlet of Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned everything he knows about honor and duty from his father, who is being accused of murdering a former patient. Penn is determined to save his father, even though he, stubbornly evoking doctor-patient privilege, refuses to speak up in his own defense.
With the aid of a local friend and reporter privy to some of Natchez's oldest and deadliest secrets, Penn follows a bloody trail that stretches back forty years, to one undeniable fact: no one—black or white, young or old, brave or not—is ever truly safe.