The third Jeff Chaussier mystery finds Jeff returning to New Orleans. This time he has marriage on his mind.

New Orleans, though, is far too seductive a lady and too wrapped in secrecy for a straightforward narrative to unfold.

Things seem hopeful at the start.

Bryna no longer has her brother's child to care for. Jeff is tired of the life of an itinerant actor and is also unusually flush with money from a London engagement. Things are on track, even though the flight home (his least favorite form of transportation) has left him woozy from self-medication.

He wakes to an uncertain morning, unclear whose bed it is he finds himself in.

Luckily, it's Bryna who is obeying his mother's instructions on what to do with him on arrival. Memory happily restored, Jeff lolls in bed as Bryna goes downstairs to prepare breakfast.

Jeff expects a meal, not muffled screams and a slamming door. Dashing downstairs, he chases the intruders out the door, handicapped by his lack of clothing and irked that Bryna was taken in the same state.

Obviously, he has to call on his family and friends to get her back. Before he can, he dives into a sea of alcohol where he finds interesting new acquaintances from Indiana who want to tour the bars and a literary co-ed who wants to instruct him in other arts.

With the help of his family and friends and some new acquaintances who are friends of a stockbroker and a doctor he is able to function again.

His boozy excursion means that the trail has gone cold until a hurried postcard from Bryna sends him north across Lake Pontchartrain to the rolling hills of horse country and south of New Orleans to the trackless swamps. Allies turn up in both places but Jeff still needs the good services of a quiet, but efficient Sheriff and a swamp rat with multiple names and odd connections.

Bryna's rescue is ready, except for the unfortunate appearance of a monster storm that renders the swamps impassable, or does it?