DESOLATION CANYON

LAPD Homicide detectives Maggie Nolan and Al Easton land a murder case that seems to bring them up against every malefactor in the Pacific time zone.

Miles from everywhere but Death Valley sits the abode of the Children of the Desert, a spiritual retreat whose presider, Father Paul, is so evil that his wife, Marielle, is willing to risk her life to grab their daughter, Serena, and escape into the desert with her. She’s encouraged and helped in her flight by Desert Storm vet Lenny Jesperson, a virtual stranger she feels forced to trust. Lenny gets mother and daughter as far as his boat, the Royal Bess, but they’re snatched from their hiding place by Gregory Rybakov at the behest of millionaire businessman Ivan Lukin, who’s been supplementing the fortune he’s made through the behemoth Krasnoport by running drugs through the Children of the Desert and who can’t afford a police investigation into Marielle and Serena’s disappearance. But that’s exactly what follows when Nolan seeks a break from a family drama whose latest chapter is her mother Emily’s checking in at the Children of the Desert to deal with her bottomless grief over the death of her son. Sharing a drink with colleague Detective Remy Beaudreau and walking around the Bel-Air Hotel’s Swan Pond, Nolan discovers a corpse in the pond. The dead man, Blake Lindgren, was general counsel to Krasnoport, and his death marks the beginning of the long, long process of tying all these threads together. Tracy spikes the mixture with a few more deaths, a lot more felonies, and several hints that Emily Nolan may not be the only relative who’s passing time among the Children of the Desert.

Something for everyone, and then some.