Tee Jolie Melton, a young woman with a troubled past, visits Dave Robicheaux in a recovery unit in New Orleans and leaves him an iPod with the country blues song “My Creole Belle” on it. Dave becomes obsessed with the song and the vivid memory of Tee Jolie. When he learns that her sister has turned up dead inside a block of ice floating in the Gulf, he believes that putting the evils of the past to rest is more urgent than ever before.