Disillusioned with both the legal system and his private life, criminal attorney Ben Kincaid abandons his practice for a less stressful pastime: playing with a combo at Uncle Earl's Jazz Emporium. The musician's life is bliss--until a corpse crashes through the ceiling with a grisly smile carved on its face.
The body is that of " Cajun Lily" Campbell, legendary singer and onetime girlfriend of club owner Earl Bonner. The cops are convinced that Bonner killed her--and Kincaid knows he didn't. Though he swore he was through with law forever, Kincaid descends into an underworld of gangs, drugs, Internet sex " clubs, " and long-standing vendettas. And at the bottom, a killer waits, targeting Kincaid as the next to die with a smile on his face.