Former anthropologist Minoa Diamond is back in Santa Fe when a childhood friend, Dreema Adkins, dies of rattlesnake bite—a tragic improbable accident, or so everyone believes. Although the grieving dysfunctional family brings up memories of Minoa’s derailed adolescence, she tries to help out. Big mistake. Dreema’s violent ex- takes aim at her, the neighborhood real estate developer trades Diamondbacks in a fake ‘reptile elimination program’ and a New Age shaman hides serpent secrets behind goddess rituals. Pretty soon rattlers turn up in too many places connected to her dead chum’s death, like a venom trader’s ranchette, a deviant Penitente cult and somebody’s bathroom in a cheap housing development. Minoa must chase a rattler killer that nobody believes in from the adobe mansions of Santa Fe’s historical zone to impoverished villages and ancient Indian pueblos in northern New Mexico. Along the way she’s forced to do fieldwork on her world and her past to find out where the venom is really coming from.