When the governor of New Mexico is found drowned in the Bath House at Jemez Springs, Albuquerque private eye Sonny Baca is called in to investigate. As he soon learns, murder is only the beginning of the evil that Sonny must sort out. Someone has planted a bomb in the Valles Caldera, not far from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and it is set to detonate in just a few hours. Is this the work of terrorists or is Sonny's old nemesis, Raven, mixed up in the plot?

In a race against the clock Sonny encounters ghosts and sorcerers, beautiful women and environmental activists, and developers and politicians who are quarreling over the state's most precious resource, its water.