Foreign
correspondent Lola Wicks is pissed off. Her editor, downsizing her from her Kabul
posting, reassigns her to a stateside suburban beat formerly the province of
interns. Meanwhile, arriving in Montana for some R&R at a friend’s cabin, she is
surprised to find her friend nowhere in sight.
Anger
turns to terror when Lola discovers her friend shot dead. She can’t get out of
Montana fast enough but finds that she can’t leave, as she’s being held as a
potential witness, thwarting her plan to return to Afghanistan on her own and
have her editors change their minds. Her best hope now lies in solving the case
herself. But this sure-footed journalist who deftly negotiated Afghanistan’s
deadly terrain finds herself frighteningly off balance in this forgotten corner
of her own country, plagued by tensions between the locals and citizens of the
nearby Blackfeet Nation.
Lola’s
lone-wolf style doesn’t work in a place where the harsh landscape and extreme
isolation compel people to rely upon each other in ways she finds unsettling.
In her awkward attempts at connection, she forms a reluctant alliance with a
local reporter, succumbs to the romantic attentions of a wealthy rancher, and
fences warily with the state’s first Indian candidate for governor, the subject
of her friend’s final stories.
Ultimately
she comes to truly care about the people she meets in Montana, only to miss the
warning signals that her own life is in danger.
While
unraveling her friend’s terrible fate, Lola joins many Americans in learning
the hard lessons of a fraught economy—that circumstances change in a flash,
that formerly overlooked places and people can hold deep value, and that human
bonds matter more than fleeting career success.
Download and start listening now!