Set in the years immediately after the start of Prohibition and against the backdrop of a hot and dusty southern California, a love story and tragedy unfolds for two young people. One, a young woman from a wealthy family worried about her genius, scientist brother and the other, a disaffected college drop-out looking to find a future that is his own. What the dropout discovers, as he unpicks the suspense, violence and tragedy of a murder, is his keen sense of justice and how to survive in what would later become his defining life and obsession with crime as usual.