When a day trip out of Las Vegas with his wife takes a turn for the worse, Jack is sure he has the ability to get them home.

But he has driven into something far beyond reason

Rescue comes in the form of a desert hermit, but hope fades as the couple comes to realize that the nomad has no intention of letting them leave. A chance encounter with a kidnapped runaway and her crazed abductor leads them all farther into the wilderness — and closer to the cold brutality that isolation brings.

At the edge of his sanity, Jack begins to learn that playing by another’s rules may be the only way to survive.

In a voice that is as hypnotizing as a desert mirage, debut novelist Samuel Parker entices listeners down a treacherous road, where the forces of good and evil are as crushing as the Mojave heat.