Kiko Yoshida works as a Keno runner at the Serengeti Casino in Las Vegas while dreaming of a career as a singer and dancer. She catches the eye of a big-time mobster who demands to have her sent to his room. Casino manager Eddie Mazzetti promises her a part in “The Flower Drum Song” when it comes to Las Vegas if she will be the mobster’s escort for one evening. Kiko shows up at Frankie “The Whale” Pescatore’s executive suite expecting to be his date at a fancy dinner with politicians and executives of the gambling industry. Within minutes, she realizes she has made a terrible ...

In the middle of an important investigation,Smoke Tree Substation Commander Carlos Caballo, known up and down the Colorado River Valley as "Horse," is suddenly called away to find a man who has shot an inspector at the California Agricultural Inspection station in the tiny desert community of Vidal, California. A California Highway patrolman has found the car abandoned alongside Highway95. When Horse and and the patrolman force open the trunk, they discover a body: the man's wife. Horse realizes he and his deputies must find a killer who is on foot in the vast, unpopulated area where the ...

It’s the 1950s. Thousands of people every day pass through Smoke Tree, California, on Route 66. The Mother Road. The two-lane blacktop that stretches from Chicago to LA. A few make a quick stop in the isolated, Mojave Desert town. Some stay. Some are dangerous. And a few are downright deadly. Burke Henry is deadly. He drives into Smoke Tree on a motorcycle on a cold, windy, winter day. His panniers are stuffed with cash. Lots of cash. Who is he? What does he want? Why a tiny town like Smoke Tree? Nobody knows, but they’re all dying to find out. And so are some men from Oklahoma. Members...

A TEENAGE GIRL, HER FACE SUDDENLY DISFIGURED BY PARALYSIS, TURNS HER BACK ON THE WORLD AND DISAPPEARS DEEP INTO THE DESERT. HOW LONG CAN SHE REMAIN HIDDEN? A MYSTERIOUS NATIVE AMERICAN IS THE ONLY PERSON WHO HAS EVER SEEN HER AS SHE WANDERS THE DESERT ON MOONLIT NIGHTS, AND HE KEEPS HER SECRET. KEEPS IT, THAT IS, UNTIL A DRUG CARTEL PLANE CRASHES NEAR HER MOUNTAINSIDE HIDING PLACE, PUTTING HER IN DANGER. Two federal agents, one from ATF and one from the FBI arrive in Smoke Tree. They seek the help of Captain Carlos Caballo of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department in finding thieves...

For over twenty five years, The House of Three Murders has squatted, abandoned and decaying, deep inside a dense mesquite and tamarisk thicket in the middle of the vast Mojave Desert. The infamous house was the site of gruesome and bloody multiple murders. The murders have gradually passed into barely-remembered Mojave Desert legend, but the house remains, foreboding, forlorn and nearly forgotten. Then, on a moonlight November night in 1960, five people are there at the same time. Well, four technically, because one of them has just died from a gunshot wound! Three of the five are teenagers...

In the foothills of the desert mountains west of Smoke Tree, someone has murdered Caleb and Eunice Clovis. They were impoverished squatters living a life of bare subsistence far off the beaten track in a miserable lean-to made of discarded lumber and cast off building materials. Who would want to kill them? And why? There seems to be no motive for the crime. Lieutenant Carlos Caballo, known throughout the Lower Colorado River Basin simply as “Horse,” is charged with solving the crime. A crime that might not have been discovered for months or even years except for a minor twist of fate. ...

It's January of 1974, and relentless winter winds on the Mojave Desert bring trouble to Smoke Tree. The trouble includes the brutal murder of a man in the witness protection program, the shooting of a sheriff's deputy, and the arson-fueled destruction of Smoke Tree City Hall. Hauke Hunter, a lateral transfer from the San Diego Sheriff's Department also arrives with the north winds, as does a troubled and troublesome orphan from the Big Smoky Valley in Nevada, As one of his deputies lies near death, Captain Carlos Caballo, known as Horse throughout the Lower Colorado River Basin, has his ...

A MAN SHOULD NOT DROWN IN A DESERT! BUT ONE HAS. TWICE! Teenage outsiders from the desert town of Smoke Tree find a body floating in a cistern beneath a desert moon, but an autopsy shows the man drowned elsewhere. Why move a drowned man and stage a false drowning? As Deputy Johnny Quentin, investigates, he discovers that the man's wife is also missing. Johnny must find her before the killer claims another victim. Find her in a section of open desert larger than some states. The new deputy, haunted his his tours as a Ranger in Vietnam and the death of his best friend there, must put his ...

After eight years in the United States Army, Johnny Quentin, who joined in 1961 on the buddy system with his friend Charlie Merriman, has returned to Smoke Tree without Charlie. Johnny intends to stop only long enough to pay his respects to Charlie's widow and his mother, but Webster Charles, the oldest man in the Mojave Village and the strongest link to the tribe's cultural heritage, has other plans for Johnny. Once those plans are revealed, Johnny stays to honor Charlie Merriman's last request: that Johnny be more than a godfather to the slain soldier's twin sons. Nothing is easy for ...

Things are getting complicated in Smoke Tree, the dusty Mojave Desert town hard by Highway 66 and the Santa Fe Rail Line on the banks of the Colorado River. In June of 1964, three men descend on the town: one puts down roots, one finds the light, and one descends into deeply twisted evil. Captain Carlos Caballo, commander of the Smoke Tree Substation of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, is responsible for policing an area larger than many states. He has to deal simultaneously with a joint Army-Air Force exercise that has flung 100,000 military personnel across his area, a ...