Falling Down

Part Hopi computer hacker Laura Winslow investigates a shocking web of drugs, murder, and smuggling in this gorgeously-written seventh installment in she Shamus-nominated series.

Part Hopi computer hacker Laura Winslow hasn't shed the sense of Koyanisquaatsi--the Hopi word for World Out of Balance, or, for Laura, the feeling that society is falling down. She's just been offered another hacker job by an anonymous client, work that would be illegal and probably unethical; her romance with policeman Nathan Brittles has lately been rocky; and her daughter has just come home with a baby, and won't tell who the father is.

But soon a woman named Mary Emich, director of park events at Tohono Chul Park hires Laura, revealing that strange messages have been turning up on the park's computers--signals that something may be very wrong in the usually tranquil area. Laura's desperate need for friendship pulls her to Mary Emich--and soon deep into a case that throws her already-rocky world even more off kilter. For a dark force has entered Tohono Chul: a crime cartel that masks itself as the village and park's protector is in fact involving a hopeless town in drugs, and even worse, people smuggling across the Mexican border. And amidst a backdrop of desperation, broken trust, and murder, Laura must question even those to whom she's become close, attempting to stop a criminal enterprise that threatens to destroy an entire people.