Seventeen months ago the California desert revealed the remains of Jack Watson.

The rich man's son was found incinerated in a Rolls-Royce, a bullet in his head. Now, a year and a half later, Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective Sidney Blackpool is called into the desert to take on the case. But what begins for Blackpool is an investigation sandwiched between golf games in nearby Palm Springs quickly becomes an obsession. For the savage beauty of the wastelands holds man secrets. Secrets that stir up Blackpool's long suppressed nightmares of his own son's death. Secrets that threaten to destroy an entire police department. Secrets that, by rights, should remain forever buried by the wind in the ageless desert sands.