If there's one thing Bureau of Indian Affairs Investigator Emmett Quanah Parker knows, it's that the dead don't always stay dead. With him he carries the ghosts of a partner killed in a botched operation, three failed marriages, and a long affair with the bottle. Brutally murdered and bizarrely mutilated, a woman's corpse is discovered in a remote corner of the Grand Canyon under control of the Havasupai Indian nation. Were the mutilations a clumsy attempt to conceal her identity? A barbaric act of homicidal jealousy? Or a sick twist on an age-old tradition - the taking of a scalp? The answer will determine whether this is a case of vicious murder...or a terrifying new outbreak in a long and bloody conflict. Parker is paired with FBI Special Agent Anna Turnipseed in a hastily assembled task force of two. They share a mixed Native American ancestry - and little else. But the reluctant partners will have to discover a deeper common ground before this case is over. With Emmett on the outside and Anna working undercover, they swiftly unearth evidence of adultery, bribery, and corruption. Soon Emmett suspects they are being led like Custer into the Little Big Horn - into a killer's trap. Too late, he realizes Anna has become the bait in a desperate battle of wits and strategy in which Parker himself is the ultimate quarry. And at the heart of it are the dead - with history the most lethal weapon of all.