Los Angeles 1930s. It was the last roundup for the gentleman in the three-piece suit, bobbing up and down in the moonlight like a rodeo cowboy on the back of a pumpjack. The metal horsehead pump was one of the smaller ones in the Inglewood Oil Field. Perhaps eight feet high at best. The victim’s legs, torso, and right hand were strapped to the walking beam, leaving his left arm to flop around with the rocking horse motion. It was a bizarre sight in an equally bizarre landscape, filled as far as the eye could see with a forest of hundred-foot-high wood oil derricks, their relentless motion oblivious to the human tragedy on display. The LA city fathers wouldn’t be promoting this dystopian nightmare in their tourist posters any time soon. Detective Theo Mathieu is called into investigate the ritual killing of a flamboyant Los Angeles Oil Baron as fear spreads that there might be more killings.