Anxious to get away from the pressures of the East Coast and into a climate where his trauma-induced asthma isn't a daily challenge, Dale Kinsall, DVM, hauls his baggage and his young Beagle to a vet clinic in the high desert. He arrives to a clinic populated by an eccentric staff, and a community abuzz about a recent murder. The buzz gets even louder when Dale himself stumbles across a second victim on his very first day at the clinic: a man drowned in his own drought-dusty backyard. Before much longer it becomes evident that Dale, Sully, and the clinic are all at risk, and Dale's fledgling relationship with a local colleague turns serious in more ways than one as trouble closes in on them all . . . Doranna Durgin had grand adventures on horseback in the Appalachians before turning full-time writer and ending up in the Southwestern high country with her laptop, dogs, horse, and uncontrollable imagination.