September 1973: A pro-trades union congressman is shot dead in a California desert town – along with a celebrity businessman and a barmaid who went for a break at the wrong time.

The triple homicide happened just hours after the congressman told local newspaper editor Wat Tyler that he’d come to town in defiance of a death threat from anti-union workers.

Tyler, a Vietnam combat veteran, teams up with the town’s first female chief of detectives. Together, they link the killings to a defence company boss who has gone missing, leaving a huge Pentagon contract and 1,200 jobs in the balance.

At a time when reality often humbled the wildest conspiracy theories, Tyler comes up against a hostile FBI agent, angry mobsters and a cheated casino owner.

His problems mount when a secretive figure he last saw deep in Viet Cong territory arrives in town…