Faced with the Pandora’s Box of genetic engineering and set against the backdrop of New Orleans’ waterfront corruption, maritime law, and rich bayou color, Bobby Grace is a sole-practitioner attorney who is disillusioned and adrift from love, life, and career. Beseeched by a dead seaman’s wife to represent her against her husband’s steamship company, Bobby reluctantly agrees. His investigations reveal that a local mobster is smuggling geneticallly engineered and deadly coffee into the Port of New Orleans. The mastermind behind the smuggling operation is a notorious Don, nicknamed The Vat due to his penchant for disposing of adversaries in a vat of lye. Bobby now has more than his client’s interests at stake. In a deathbed promise to his grandfather years before, he promised to settle the family score someday, somehow, against The Vat, his father’s killer. By the end of the story, not only has he exacted revenge against The Vat, thwarted the deadly smuggling scheme, and collected on the death case for his client, Bobby has also learned to commit to love, renewed his faith in God and to life itself.