Harris County, Texas Homicide Detective Pete Scallion has obsessed for over two decades over what he knows to be a brutal murder on a supposed duck hunting trip to the marshy wetlands east of Galveston Bay. Unable to convince his superiors at the time it was anything other than a tragic accident, Scallion tries to move on with his life and career. That is made harder by the fact the man he knows is a cold-blooded killer, also a member of a wealthy, powerful Houston family, is now moving up the Texas political ladder. It is now twenty years later, and Scallion has moved from rural Chambers County to Harris County, where crime seems to be a fact of daily life. He is alarmed when it becomes evident it is only a matter of time until his sworn enemy advances to the Governor's office. There is nothing he can do to sound the alarm about the man's murderous, ambitious ascent, since no one wants to dredge up a mostly forgotten twenty-year old death judged to be an accident. Plus, no one wants to ruffle the feathers of one of Houston's most influential families, least of all Otto Howorth, the Harris County Sheriff, who is also Pete's boss. A narrow window of opportunity for Scallion arises when a former athlete-turned gigolo and hustler, a love starved banker he stalks, the Houston underworld and a case of mistaken identity conspire to begin the downfall of the corrupt politician, with deadly results. The harrowing climax spreads from the Capitol Building in Austin to Houston, ending on the muddy banks of Buffalo Bayou, a meandering canal in the heart of downtown Houston.
