When Lakota FBI Agent Manny Tanno wrapped up his last case, all he wanted to do was put an end to his reluctant homecoming and get away from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation—So why did he decide to give up his cake job as an academy instructor back in Washington, D. C., and take a permanent assignment to the Rapid City, South Dakota, field office?

It might have been his hot new girlfriend: But she’s giving him the cold shoulder. It might have been his promising new protégé: But he’s burning out before Manny’s eyes.

Manny almost finds himself going through the motions in his latest case, as the investigation uncovers one, then two, then three old skeletons in a derelict car on a defunct World War II bombing range in the Badlands. He certainly can’t count on any cooperation from his childhood rival heading the tribal police department, stonewalling him from all sides. And the local media is making him a laughing-stock.

An emerging prime suspect turns out to be a popular and respected local judge. Being the first American Indian nominated for appointment as a U. S. Supreme Court Justice, everyone figures he’s in—as long as his people can make sure some nuisance FBI agent doesn’t ferret out the skeletons in his closet.

To top it off, skeletons in Manny’s own closet threaten to end his career—if not his life. Now his estranged brother, the convict-turned-holy-man, might be Manny’s only salvation from the increasingly terrifying visions. In the most desolate corner of the nation’s most destitute reservation, Manny Tanno might just find himself offered up as the next dead body in the forsaken Badlands, where the bad rocks live. . .