The Widow’s Ledger

THE WIDOW’S LEDGER

Some secrets are written in ink. Others in blood.

In 1950s New Orleans, private detective Luther Vane has learned to live with ghosts. Once a promising jazz pianist, he now makes his living tracking wayward spouses and insurance frauds, his prosthetic ivory finger a constant reminder of the night he lost both his musical career and his closest friend.

When the elegant widow Eleanor Beaumont hires him to find her husband’s missing ledger—a record of debts both financial and moral owed by the city’s elite—Luther finds himself drawn into a deadly web of corruption that reaches from the smoke-filled backrooms of French Quarter jazz clubs to the pristine parlors of the Garden District.

The ledger isn’t just a record of numbers; it’s a cipher containing evidence of a human trafficking operation protected by the highest levels of power in the city. As bodies begin to accumulate around him, Luther realizes the same people who silenced his friend seven years ago will stop at nothing to keep the ledger’s secrets buried.

Complicating matters is Clara Webster, a young woman posing as her missing twin sister while hunting for the truth about her disappearance. Her connection to the judge’s widow proves more complex—and dangerous—than either Luther or Clara initially realizes.

With help from Sadie Blue, a jazz singer with her own secrets, and Baptiste LeBlanc, a blind drummer who hears what others miss, Luther must decode the ledger’s musical cipher before more lives are lost. But in a city where everyone plays a role, distinguishing between victims and villains is never as simple as reading the notes on a page.