Easterman tells a gripping story with images that return again and again to haunt the reader: this book combines religion and superstition, some facts and a lot of fancy, in a bleak eerie tale of politics, voodoo, and high-level corruption.

Like many of his heroines, Angelina is exotic; a upper class mulato girl from the top echelons of Haitian society, she is more French than English, more white than black but despite a refined upbringing, she cannot escape her bloodline.

Jewish cop Reuben Abrahams falls in love with Angelina while investigating the murder of her husband, and the discovery of a cache of corpses under the floor of her apartment.

The investigation is blocked at the highest level and Reuben soon becomes a victim: he and Angelina go to Haiti to discover more about a secret society hell-bent on creating chaos, and both become entrapped by her brother, head of the secret police.

The book is somewhat inconclusive but ends unhappily, as so many of his novels do. Not a story for the squeamish, but still a fascinating description of Haitian society and the Voudon religion. ( )