"I just killed a man, but I'm not a murderer". He's Ray Falco, a Washington journalist living in burnt-out seclusion until an unnameable force--Vodoun--draws him into a murder investigation that spans the centuries, from the Haitian revolution in 1793 to the blood-soaked present. Falco's adventures propel him into the world of Haitian exile politics, whose inhabitants live in a nefarious shadowland: --Faustian Gabriel, an enigmatic art gallery owner whose sleek exterior masks his true identity. --Carmen Mondesir, the director of a Haitian charity whose haunted blue eyes peer out from ebony skin, hinting at the violent contradictions within her. --Lucy Marcelin, a beautiful Haitian-born lawyer who guides Falco through a world few outsiders ever see. Against the surreal backdrop of Haitian elections, where the gods of voodoo wield more influence than the voters, these four fates intertwine...and Ray Falco realizes that only Vodoun can save him. "A voodoo curse turns Haitian history into a demented exercise in deja vu- from the fevered, all-stops-out imagination behind U.S.S.A."--Kirkus Reviews