Changes

It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until....

... three people are shot and killed; a visiting congressman who's trying to promote unionisation of labour, a rags-to-riches businessman, and a barmaid on a break, seemingly in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are particularly gruesome shootings as well, with the bodies hideously disfigured by hollow point bullets.

Wat Tyler of the ''High Desert Herald'' is right on scene for the scoop, having just interviewed the congressman, who had told him he'd received death threats from anti-union workers. Are they to blame? Or is there more to the story? Wat teams up with local detective Lee Caraway to investigate. Caraway is the first female chief of detectives in Hicks and has a lot to prove. Soon they link the murders to a big defence contract and a missing contractor. And then the Feds and an old friend of Wat's, now working for the CIA, get involved.