Molly Bender, new to the Santa Fe Police Department, has to join Special Agent Wink Hoodle of the FBI in a task force to investigate strange doings at Guru Ram's religious cult, the sky-blue-robed Jebudindu, in nearby Barsalona, New Mexico. With her new friend Harry Fine, an ex-newspaperman who now writes a nasty advice-to-the-lovelorn column under the name of Miz Tingle, Molly moves out to join the ashram as an undercover agent, where she meets the rabid Ma Lisha, pistol-packing chief assistant to charismatic, handsome Guru Ram; and 16-year-old Angel Cruz, a member of the twelve remaining Hispanic families of Old Barsalona, now renamed New Jericho by the Guru and his gang of loopy malcontents, misfits, winos and freaks. Molly and Harry and Angel try to foil the cult's plans to take over tiny Antelope County by means of imported voters, a gem heist, forged securities, murder, and a last-ditch attempt to poison the thousand unsuspecting members of the cult.