The ravishing Angelique Crozat, a notorious octoroon who travels in the city's finest company, has been strangled to death. With the authorities reluctant to become involved, Ben begins his own inquiry, which will take him through the seamy haunts of riverboatmen and into the huts of voodoo worshipping slaves.
But soon the eyes of suspicion turn toward Benfor, black as the slave who fathered him, this free man of color is still seen as the perfect scapegoat.