Andy Broussard, the plump and proud New Orleans medical examiner, obviously loves food. Less apparent to the casual observer is his hatred of murderers. Together with his gorgeous sidekick, psychologist Kit Franklyn, the two make a powerful, although improbable, mystery solving duo. Among the dead collected in 'The Big Easy' floodwaters after hurricane Katrina are three nude female bodies, all caught in the same brush tangle, none with water in their lungs. No water. Broussard knows this was not an act of God; not the work of Katrina. There's a killer on the loose and by God, Broussard means to find him. But Broussard has perhaps the biggest challenge of his colourful career. The city and all its records are destroyed, practically the entire population is scattered, the police force has no offices and many of the rank and file (who haven't defected) are homeless. And if that's not bad enough, Broussard discovers that the bodies were all once frozen solid, completely obliterating key forensic clues. Soon, Broussard and Franklyn are on a dangerous and labyrinthine journey through the obscenely damaged, ever mysterious, irresistibly seductive, city of New Orleans; leading them to a kind of evil that neither of them could imagine.