A corpse, stiff with rigor mortis and bound in heavy ropes, has been dumped on the doorstep of FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast. The murder has the hallmarks of the perfect crime – no witnesses, no motive, no evidence – save for one enigmatic clue: a piece of turquoise lodged in the stomach of the deceased. The gem leads Pendergast to an abandoned mine on the shore of California's desolate Salton Sea where an ingenious killer is determined to make him pay for the long-buried sins of his forefathers. But Pendergast already knows what is at stake, for the dead man left on his doorstep wasn't just anyone, it was his son.