Mignon is a beautiful young widow who, with her father, has come to New Orleans at the close of the Civil War in the hopes of improving their war-reduced fortunes. But the risky trade in contraband cotton has landed her father in jail and Mignon at the hotel room door of Bill Cresap. Cresap, recently discharged from the Union Army for wounds received in battle, has arrived in New Orleans to start a business with a friend. Reluctantly, but irrevocably, Cresap is drawn into the intrigues and dangers which engulf the irresistible Mignon.Also moving among the dark events of those tough, trouble times is a fascinating variety of richly drawn characters. There is Adolphe Landry, Mignon's enigmatic father; Frank Burke, Landry's unscrupulous partner; Gippo, Burke's henchman, more animal than human; and Marie Tremaine, the beautiful, rich, and powerful chatelaine of a notorious New Orleans gambling house.From gaudy New Orleans, the scene shifts up-river to the bloody Red River battle. There, the personal and militar dramas are joined. Cresap, in the turbulent actions which follow, finds himself not only involved in the intrigues of desperate men, but the passions of two beautiful women.
