City of the Saints

Famous throughout the world for his search for the mysterious source of the Nile and his adventure as one of the first non-Muslims to visit the holy city of Mecca, author and explorer Richard F. Burton has turned his attention in the spring of 1860 to another remote outpost where the faithful had drawn together-the Mormon settlement of Utah. During a stop in Washington, Lord Lyons, the British minister, persuades Burton to travel to New Orleans to investigate a report that a former British subject is plotting an insurrection that will hasten the onset of the Civil War. In addition to a city consumed in talk of secession and war, Burton's passions for studying culture and religion are aroused as he meets the enigmatic Hartwell and his beautiful daughters, brilliant and unconventional physicians, Marie Laveau and Doctor John at the height of their powers, and an eccentric trio of young men who help Burton realize a few important things about himself. And murder.