Fifteen years following the Civil War not much had changed for the better in the south.  The economy was still in ruins and moonshiners, who were the equivalent to modern drug syndicates, terrorized citizens and law enforcement in the hills and mountains throughout Tennessee.  A region stealthily infested with prosperous whisky distillers, counterfeiters, high level corruption, and executioners of government agents.

Any government tax collector or lawman who interfered with their operations were quickly slain in cold blood. Criminal rings controlled large sections of Tennessee, especially the economy, like a mafia.

When their last revenue agent was shot dead while trying to collect taxes, Washington DC sent their toughest agent Iron Burgess to infiltrate the underworld and restore the law. However, before reaching Tennessee the super agent's life was almost snuffed out by an assassin on the rail way depot platform before boarding the train.  He knew his trouble had just begun.

When arriving at his destination Iron Burgess' grave assignment is met with racketeers, battles with vile night raiders and lowlifes including criminal wrestler and boxer Jasper Knight and whiskey crime lord James Snedicon.  Along the way he finds unexpected supernatural mysteries and bloody encounters; desecration of a young girl's grave, shooting of the hangman's rope at a lynching, an enigmatic Black Veiled Woman, and ghosts drifting through the night air.

This Victorian Era detective story was penned by prolific dime novel writer Harlan Page Halsey (Old Sleuth himself!), copyrighted in 1880 and shelved until it first appeared in the July 3, 1885 edition of the Old Sleuth Library half-dime reader. This reprint is from the extremely rare and expanded 1892 twenty five cent Calumet Series edition, published by George Munro of New York City.