When Nancy arrives in Santa Fe, she's looking for a few weeks' getaway from her job in the Yale English Department - a place where she can revise her book before an autumn rendezvous with Chicago detective Boaz Dixon. The room she sublets is decorated, she discovers, in black and red, bedecked with herbs and crystals. She is awakened by drumming. The quiet retreat she was hoping for is a crowded household of New Agers dabbling in self-help philosophies, "crystal culture, " astrology, and channeling. The appeal of New Ageism - the sorts of people drawn to it and why - becomes a mystery she sets out to solve. When a fugitive cyberthief in the household attempts murder under cover of a peyote ceremony, a surprising arrival the next morning alters both the police investigation and Nancy's future - academic and romantic. Jones evokes the Southwestern landscape and provides a detailed and hilarious analysis of New Age subculture.