A hard, four-hour drive north of San Francisco leads to sparsely
populated Soledad County, a combination of spectacular seashore, inland
forests, and small towns steeped in gold-mining history. One of those
towns is Cyanide Wells, now an artsy community, whose name comes from
the miners' use of cyanide to refine ore and the time the area's water
supply was tragically poisoned.
To Matthew Lindstrom, that sinister legacy is ironically appropriate for
the place he finally expects to find his ex-wife, Gwen. Fourteen years
earlier, her baffling disappearance branded him a murderer and destroyed
his reputation and career as a photographer. Suddenly, after all this
time, an anonymous phone caller tells him that Gwen is alive - and well
aware of what she has done. Matt comes to Cyanide Wells looking for
answers...and revenge.
Here, where the surrounding thick forest conceals twisted paths and old
sins, Matt works to uncover the details of Gwen's new life. But before
he can confront her, his ex vanishes once more. With his future again
threatened by suspicion, Matt must join forces with Carly McGuire - a
local woman with secrets of her own - and begin a hunt through Soledad's
untamed landscape and an interior geography of betrayal and darkness.
There perhaps lies the truth about past crimes and Gwen's fate...as well
as Matt's own.
