John Denson, the Seattle private eye with his partner, Willie Prettybird - a shaman of the Cowlitz tribe - face their deadliest case: an engineered outbreak of anthrax in the Pacific Northwest. A ballooning list of suspects includes a rodeo cowboy; a barkeep with a roving eye; an ancient teacher at a high-school reunion - and the chief of police. Then there's the fund-raising televangelist Hamm Bonnerton. One of them is playing liar's dice, and coming up snake eyes. And killing people ...