Angel, following up on a lead, enters the apartment after the killers have left and finds Maria there. Maria doesn’t see the killers’ faces, but she notices a tattoo on one of the hands that reaches under the bed to search the room. Sarah and Ratan are later murdered in the apartment while Maria hides under the bed from the killers. Maria doesn’t know it at the time, but the senior water rights that Angel is looking for are tucked inside the pages of the book. The morning after Sarah and Maria sleep with Ratan, Ratan gives Maria a copy of Cadillac Desert. Sarah assures Maria that Ratan will pay them the money they need to escape Phoenix. Sarah convinces Maria to sleep with Michael Ratan, a wealthy man involved in water excavation. Meanwhile, Maria and her friend Sarah are desperate to make enough money to pay rent to the Vet and his gang of thugs that own the surrounding neighborhoods. Jamie also happens to be a friend of Lucy, and the three encounter each other while viewing Jamie’s mutilated remains. Together they investigate the murder of James Sanderson, a legal associate with Phoenix Water. Meanwhile, the wealthy can buy themselves housing in new luxury arcologies, which recycle water and are furnished with lush vegetation, keeping out the harsh desert.Īs a water knife, Angel’s job is to strategically cut the water from rival towns and cities for his boss, Catherine Case, the “Queen of the Colorado.” In Phoenix, Angel meets up with Julio Gúzman, another one of Case’s agents. State militias murder those refugees who attempt to illegally cross the Colorado. Other states like Nevada and California battle for a greater share of the Colorado River. States like Texas and Arizona have all but collapsed, forcing those citizens to become refugees. Dust storms threaten to engulf the US Southwest. Water is becoming increasingly scarce, and now individual states in the United States fight each other for access to it.

The water knife novel