At a funeral in New Orleans in 1836, a mishap overturns the coffin and reveals that the body inside is not the man whose burial the mourners have gathered to attend. Benjamin January’s friend Hannibal Sefton recognises the unknown white corpse but refuses to explain how he knew him.
January investigates the exchange of bodies while trying to protect Hannibal from secrets rooted in his earlier life. The case draws together hidden identities, family disgrace and the unequal value placed on Black and white deaths, forcing January to determine who arranged the substitution and which murder the false funeral was meant to conceal.