Rolly Waters has many reasons to regret going out for Mexican food at 2:30 in the morning. Not least because then he would never have met dance-club DJ Macy Starr - possibly the most infuriating and secretive client he has ever taken on.

Macy Starr wants Rolly to find out what happened to the young woman she knew as Aunt Betty, the woman who rescued her as a child and then disappeared without trace. The only clue she has to go on is a curious one-stringed guitar.

Rolly's investigation leads to a weird world of alien-obsessed cults, a strange desert hideaway known as Slab City - and to a 20-year-old unsolved murder case. But how can he solve the mystery if he can't even trust his own client?