Park Ranger Anna Pigeon returns to face her most duplicitous foe--human nature--in the latest entry in Nevada Barr's bestselling, award-winning series ...

The quiet beauty of autumn on Mississippi's Natchez Trace is swiftly shattered when Anna answers a call to Mt. Locust, once a working plantation and inn, now a tourist spot. But the man Anna finds in an old bedroom is no tourist in distress. He's nearly naked and very dead-his body bearing marks consistent with sex games gone awry. On a writing table nearby is an open Bible with ominous passages circled in red.

There are secrets that prominent men in this God-fearing country wish to keep under wraps-and Anna has stumbled into a nest of them.