The last novel of the "Reconstruction Trilogy" books sees the Klans decline and followed the story of lawyer and North Carolina Grand Dragon John Graham, as he suffers a personal collapse following problems with alcohol and economic impoverishment. He orders the disbanding of his Klan, but a group of upstarts refuse to follow his orders, and continue their activities, quickly devolving into a program of terror across the state. When a judge is murdered by a man in Klan uniform, Graham's troubles increase as he becomes the primary suspect . . . Meanwhile, Graham's love interest, Stella Butler, hires a northern Secret Service detective to find the real murderer, and intrigue follows intrigue until the situation is at last resolved, and the "traitor" is found out. The book was highly successful in its day, selling in the hundreds of thousands. The other two volumes in this trilogy, "The Leopard's Spots" and "The Clansman," were equally as successful, with "The Clansman" forming the basis of the epic 1915 movie "Birth of a Nation."