A prisoner languishes in a Phoenix jail cell, accused of killing his estranged wife. No one belives the man is innocent, except the new Sheriff of Cochise County, in town for a crash course in police training. Joanna Brady is out of her jursidiction-and possibly in over her head. For a human monster is on the prowl, hiding grisly evidence of his horrific crimes in the vast emptiness of the Arizona desert. And an impromptu investigation, with no official sanction and no back up, is drawing a cold, ingenious serial killer much too close to Brady for comfort-and worse still to her little girl.