Charlie Armistead had been a drunk and charming loser with a string of failed marriages and two grown children he hardly knew, but a suicide? Frank Donovan doesn"t think so-and he has good reasons: years of experience as a detective and a nagging intuition frustratingly at variance with the logical, technological, even mechanical approach to solving crimes that seems to be taking over law enforcement. Mary Armistead is the perfect matriarch, in control of her property, her emotions, and everything around her-except that everything keeps falling apart. Brian Armistead, Charlie"s son, is well on his way to becoming a drunk like his father. He may of may not be concealing a deadly secret. Andrea Armistead, Charlie"s daughter, came from Maine to California for the funeral at her grandmother"s request, and wants nothing more than to go back to her lover and her life there. A mysterious stranger tells her that "all is not as it seems." But she and Frank find themselves involved in conflicts that started with the Civil War and leave dead bodies in their wake.