Archaeologist Nora Kelly is adrift in her career and her personal life when a violent, inexplicable incident leaves her in possession of a mysterious letter.
Written sixteen years before by her father, who vanished without a trace in the remote desert, the letter points to a mythical place hidden in the redrock canyon country of southwestern Utah: Quivira, a city of gold and wonder, the lost city of the Anasazi Indians.

Convinced that her father found Quivira before he disappeared, Nora puts together an expedition. Supported by the head of a well-funded archaeological institute, Nora will take a team up Lake Powell to the mouth of Serpentine Canyon.

What lies ahead in the harsh labyrinth of canyons and slickrock desert is more than she could ever have expected. It is the answer to both her greatest hopes and her deepest nightmares. For hidden in the shadows of the sunbaked cliffs are untold treasures; the answer to the greatest riddle of American archaeology--and implacable, suffocating death.