When Brooklyn private eye Eddie Lombardi tries to help retired sanitation man Thomas Hamilton, the alleged Cut-'Em-Up Killer, he steps into a world that is beyond his wildest experience. Eddie has seen more than his share of danger, first as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne during World War II, and then as a survivor in a very tough profession. But nothing can prepare him for the harrowing journey he is about to take into a world of purest evil.

Eddie's six-foot seven-inch African American friend Watusi is more than aware of the horrors they could face, for the world they will be entering is the world of voodoo, where sorcerers seek to corrupt and control minds, and where darkness rules. The Cut-'Em-Up murders, in which four jazz musicians were hideously butchered five years earlier, become the entry point into that hell for Eddie and Watusi. And as they seek the truth that will hopefully free their friend from his rendezvous with the electric chair, they soon discover that the evil they pursue is also pursuing them.