Shamans have long told stories of a naturally-occurring mineral with the power to heal anything. If true, it would threaten the very existence of the global pharmaceutical industry. A brilliant but deranged physician, “Doc,” secretly discovers a deposit of the stuff under the ground on old Cody McPherson’s ranch in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Doc has Cody McPherson is murdered in a remote corner of his 8,400-acre ranch. With his horse Boone as the only witness, the two murderers go undetected.
Hundreds of miles distant, Tom Larkin leaves Saint Paul, Minnesota on a quest to find himself, a ranch that will reprise his childhood in the Black Hills, and just maybe save his marriage. Little does he know that he’s on a collision course with Doc and the other men who killed Cody.
Now up for sale, Cody’s ranch becomes Larkin’s first obsession. His second is Eva Shepherd, a local woman with whom Larkin falls into a passionate and erotic alliance. She has an illegitimate child by Doc, who coerces her into betraying Larkin. Finally, Eva makes a courageous stand.
But did she wait too long? Using information Eva supplied, the killers have laid their trap for Larkin. His life is now in play.
Larkin breaks the law, his wife’s heart and his personal code of ethics to stay alive. But Cody’s death is avenged and his widow rescued. Larkin learns the painful difference between what he covets and what he holds most dear.
Tom Larkin’s quest for land is a spiritual journey in search of meaning in an anything-for-money world. The language is as raw and evocative as the land in which the novel plays out. Is it possible to find God in an erotic union? Without passion, what meaning is there in virtue? How far will Tom go to pursue his desires—and how devastating will it be when he finally gets what he asked for?
“Native Ground” explores our most primordial urges and the elaborate masks we’ve constructed to hide those impulses. Set in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the novel plays out over seven tense days.