The murder of a young musician and dancer in a traditional village in Benin, West Africa, where most people adhere to the vodun cult, is at the origin of a wave of crime and violence. A British journalist of mixed blood arrives to investigate the seemingly unrelated drowning of a friend. He is drawn into these crimes when he interviews the villagers and a lone white man, an agricultural scientist, who lives in their midst. A sacred forest with its monkeys takes centre-stage.

Dr. Peter Neuenschwander is a trained entomologist and specialist in biological control, retired, but still working as emeritus scientist at an agricultural research station in Benin, West Africa. Currently, he is managing and living in a rehabilitated forest in a small African village, but stays six months per year with his family in Switzerland.