A heart-rac­ing thriller that trav­els through Louisiana’s plan­ta­tion coun­try, the bay­ous of Cajun vil­lages, and the wild streets of New Orleans, revolv­ing around the fate of a Jew­ish immi­grant that fled Czar Alexan­der III’s Rus­sia as Yaakov Gure­vich and even­tu­al­ly arrived in the Amer­i­can south as Jake Gold. As a ped­dler, Jake is a fre­quent vis­i­tor to Cot­ton­crest Plan­ta­tion, but his asso­ci­a­tion soon impli­cates him in the death of the own­er and his wife. As a result, Jake must use his chameleon-like abil­i­ties to sur­vive a vicious man­hunt led by the local sher­iff and the Knights of the White Camel­lia. This epic saga unfurls over a hun­dred years of treach­ery, fam­i­ly rival­ry, civ­il war and civ­il rights, before rac­ing to a dra­mat­ic dénoue­ment as the read­er seeks to deci­pher the secret of The Cot­ton­crest Curse.