On a cold December night in 1920s Atlanta, a drunken white cop shoots a black gambler in one of the worst parts of town; a cache of jewels goes missing from a mansion in one of the best. Joe Rose—rambler, gambler, and professional thief—has just hit the city. He soon finds himself caught in a three-sided puzzle that involves a black-hearted, power-hungry police officer called "the Captain," the pimp and crapshooter Little Jesse Williams, and a wicked, mysterious beauty named Pearl Spencer. Behind it all are the burgeoning, complex worlds of Atlanta, the city once nothing but dust and ashes-- now, suddenly, the richest, busiest metropolis in the South, mixing sin with success and vibrating with mayhem and music.In his acclaimed Storyville series, David Fulmer brought the jazz-soaked streets of New Orleans to life. Now he brings us another absorbing mystery in a new setting raucous with music and rich with history.