Sam Monroe thought his steamy love affair with Laura Nielson was dead and buried, but when she didn’t show up after unexpectedly calling him late at night and asking to meet, he decides to investigate. He finds her naked on her balcony, strangled, his dog tags wrapped around her neck. Sam begins a search for the killer that reveals Laura’s involvement with several men, some with ties to a well-known crime family. As circumstantial evidence mounts against him, the cops close in, he is forced to operate in the shadows. He relies on the unofficial help of several coworkers in the DA’s office and Debora Jean Ryan, a private investigator. As they probe Laura’s past looking for clues, they must also figure out Laura’s mysterious trip out west, the death of a young man in New Jersey during her childhood and who is making attempts on his life.

Growing up in Montana, siblings Raymond and Barbara Lansdale held their chaotic world together through their shared childhood fantasy of The Long Ago: a distant place where happiness and tranquility reigned. To escape his painful past, Ray joins the army and finds a career that gives him a sense of purpose and the promise of adventure. Recent news of his kid sister’s disappearance brings Ray home on leave before beginning a stateside assignment almost certain to send him back into the jungles of Vietnam. Determined to find Barbara despite a police investigation that has led nowhere, Ray embarks on a relentless search that takes him from the majestic Montana ranchlands and glitter of Hollywood to the mean streets of L.A. and beyond. As time dwindles, he must confront his worst nightmare.

Given a chance to salvage his law enforcement career, Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Detective Clayton Istee catches a bizarre late-night double homicide at a Las Cruces hotel. Both victims have been scalped with their throats cut. The murders show all the signs of a signature hit, but national and state crime databases reveal no similar profiles. Digging into the victims’ backgrounds, Clayton discovers that six months prior the couple had walked out of a nearby casino with $200,000 of a high-stakes gambler’s money. He also learns the crime had been hushed up by an undercover federal DEA agent, who resurfaces and recruits Clayton for a dangerous mission to seize the Mexican drug lord responsible for the killings.

In the wake of the death of his wife as she gives birth to his son, and the killing of his brother, John Kerney is forced to give up his ranch, leave his son behind, and strike out in search of the murderous outlaws and a place where he can start over. He drifts south until he meets a man who offers him work trailing cattle to the New Mexico Territory and forever changes his life.