Lucretia (Cree) Black is a parapsychologist, a professional ghost-hunter who takes a scientific approach to alleged hauntings. Believing that powerful emotions can trigger electromagnetic "broadcasts" which appear as ghosts, Cree's investigative methods include in-depth historical research and psychological analysis.
Her skills are tested to the limit when she's hired to investigate the haunting of fragile Lila Beauforte in her ancestral New Orleans home. Is Lila insane? Could an unsolved murder in the Beauforte house some years earlier be responsible for the apparition now tormenting her? Is it possible she's seeing something real? Or could Cree be dealing with a case of suppressed memory, something that happened in Lila's own past?
The answer may lie in the city of New Orleans itself. Atmospheric and irremediably corrupt, New Orleans is a place of masks: masks that can cover up some very ugly realities . . .