A town of wide-open prairies and endless skies, Goodlands, North Dakota, seemed the perfect place to farm and raise a family - until four years without rain brought the town to its knees. Now darkness has descended on Goodlands: Fires are singeing the already parched land, suspicious crimes are on the rise, and an ever-increasing sense of doom is enveloping the town.

Tom Keatley has pulled rain from the sky in town after arid town. A loner, a drifter, Tom is a rainmaker, the stuff of myth. But to Karen Grange, Goodlands' beleagured mortgage lender, Tom is her only hope to save the dying town. For Tom Keatley, inextricably drawn to Goodlands and to Karen, the storm is just beginning. Because beneath the hard, cracked earth is a shattering secret that only he can uncover.

And in the hot, dry air, a sinister force is gathering strength, ready to wage a war for the soul of Goodlands.