A woman is cruelly cut down in a remote corner of Arizona, killed on her nineteenth wedding anniversary by a drunk motorist.? A season later, the driver himself dies badly, and all suspicions indicate the slain woman’s still-grieving spouse as his murderer. But the truth is rarely dark and white in the long Southwestern shadows, and one rules officer isn’t rushing to condemn the tragic widower therefore quickly: Joanna Brady, Sheriff of Cochise County. Brady’s convictions, nevertheless, are leading her on the twisted trail through inhospitable country-and establishing her on the path which will provide her face-to-face with chilly, calculating death in the high, lonely desert.