After serving part of an outrageously long sentence, Tookie, who 'learned to read with murderous attention' while in prison, naturally gravitates toward working at a bookstore. There she joins a dedicated community of artists and book lovers and begins to build a new life for herself. When Flora, the store's most persistent customer, suddenly dies, her ghost refuses to leave. Flora returns on All Soul's Day to haunt the bookstore and in particular, Tookie. Why? The mystery of this revenant's appearance leads Asema, a fellow Ojibwe bookseller, and Tookie to a shocking personal discovery with historical reverberations.