At seventeen, Ria Lugo fled her troubled family life, and the shadow of her domineering father to become a nun in India. Ten years later, in 1882, she's back home, in Los Angeles, to fulfill a deathbed promise to her mother—to protect her father should he ever come into danger. Eccentric, larger-than-life and patriarch of the family's centuries-old, land-grant rancho, Don Maximiato Lugo's way of life was already eroding under the economic and social pressures of an increasingly Anglo "L.A." Now, he stands accused of the brutal murder of a local prostitute. Has he been framed? Or has he, as his daughter suspects, finally gone mad?As Ria investigates the young woman's death, sinister events conspire to raise doubts about her father's innocence. His personal possessions turn up in strange—and incriminating—places all over the city, even as his behavior becomes more and more erratic. Determined to fulfill her promise, Ria searches through the streets and back alleys of a Mexican Los Angeles that is fast disappearing. As she hunts for answers, she finds herself stalked by a threatening, unknown figure who gets closer to her with each encounter.