It is 2008. In a mysterious Californian desert a four-year-old autistic boy goes missing and his parents find themselves at the centre of a media witch-hunt. Ageing rockstar Nicky Capaldi, hiding out at the same motel as the family, finds himself drawn into the fray. Not far away from them, a teenage Iraqi refugee is role-playing in a military simulation. In 1778, a Spanish hidalgo reports on the progress of missionaries attempting to win over the natives as he rides across California. One of the missionaries, Fray Garces, reports a journey in which he seems to be magically transported across a stretch of the desert. In between these times, a Mormon miner searches for silver in the desert rocks; a traumatised, guilt-ridden war veteran attempts to record the language and customs of the local Native American tribe; and a hippie cult arrives in town and is violently raided. As these lives intersect, twists, turns and outcomes make for an oddly compulsive and completely engaging read.

Kabita Dhara is a freelance writer and publisher at Brass Monkey Books