When a gravely injured stranger barges into his college classroom asking for help solving a ninety-year-old mystery, Professor Andrew Pickens doesn't want to get involved. But as a former investigative reporter with detailed scholarly knowledge of Detroit's violent past, Andrew is perfect for the job. He is gradually drawn into assisting the stranger—Murphy, a private detective with a checkered reputation—and Baxter Fineman, who is trying to prove his grandfather was murdered in 1931 by the Black Legion, a white supremacist hate group. Evidence mounts that the Black Legion is once again active in Detroit. Between teaching history classes and jamming with the elderly members of his late father's bluegrass band, Andrew gathers clues from the past that lead them closer to the truth—and to a long-lost artifact once owned by Henry Ford that the Black Legion wants at any cost. As the violence from the Black Legion escalates, Andrew finds himself in danger of being killed. Finally, on Devil's Night, during a huge masquerade party in the world's largest Masonic Temple, Andrew confronts the modern-day face of a legacy of evil— a trained killer he must defeat to stay alive and right a decades-old injustice.