Loner. Free spirit. Rebel. Not words normally associated with an agent of the ultra-conservative FBI Counterterrorism Division. When the mutilated body of a black U.S. Congressman and Christian minister was found in the steamy bayous of southwestern Louisiana, Special Agent Adam Stephen had the perfect qualities needed to be the lead investigator. Adam discovers that the Congressman may have appeared respectable, but finds muddy surprises and vicious enemies instead. From a New Orleans Garden District widow to a bizarre Neo-Nazi group, the suspect list reads like a recipe for a spicy bowl of swamp snake gumbo, and Adam appears to be the next ingredient.