Hadley is twenty-three, bright and curious, and caught in the sinking net of methamphetamine cookers--'tweakers' --who run their business from the grim Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles. The more frantic her struggle to pull herself and her boyfriend, Jed, from out of that world, the more divided her life and loyalties become. One hand reaches down to rescue him, while the other stretches upward to a new life of writing, teaching, steering those just younger than herself out of the thicket that threatens to trap her. Her knowledge of the ancient basin's terrain holds the key to keeping the tweakers going. Whether she will use it, and how, gives Had's story its breathtaking speed and magnetism.