The place is Albuquerque. The time is now. The man is Sonny Baca, a small-time private eye with big-time dreams. A great-grandson of the fabled lawman Elfego Baca, Sonny always carries his forebear's Colt .45, but wonders if he also carries el Bisabuelo's courage. While the elder Baca gained fame by ridding Old New Mexico of dangerous desperadoes, Sonny ekes out a living investigating tacky divorces and dubious insurance claims ... until Gloria Dominic is found murdered in the most sensational fashion.

Sonny is suddenly on the case with a vengeance. But then Gloria was his cousin, his beloved prima, and he has made a vow to her mother - and to himself - to find the killer. Neither flawless beauty nor marriage to a hot-shot politician had protected his cousin from a ghastly end. Her body had been drained of its blood, and around her novel an arcane insignia had been etched: the Zia sun symbol.

"This was no bungled break-in," says forensics. "She knew her murderers." And Sonny knows that the sign of the sun is the work of brujas, of evil witches. He senses a mysterious connection between the past and present. The Aztecs, he reasons, used blood to feed the sun. Is Gloria's stolen blood likewise a gift to the sun? Could her bodily disfigurement be linked to the cases of cattle mutilation plaguing the area?

Aided by his loyal girlfriend, Rita, and spurred on by the susto, the spirit, of Gloria, Sonny's search for truth leads him straight into Albuquerque's treacherous political arena - and a passionate environmental battle over nuclear waste transport and disposal.