The author is a well known criminal defense attorney and former New Mexico Supreme Court Justice. Scarborough tells the true story of a Chimayó drug-dealer's murder and the people in that conflicted community tied to it. The author defended one of the accused. Included in the text are riveting, verbatim accounts of principals in the story, taken from interviews with them conducted by the author or taken from court records. Scarborough's work examines the drug culture in the rural communities neighboring aloof and trendy Santa Fe through the eyes of junkies, traffickers, cops, court personnel, addiction-treatment providers and others.