After twenty-three years away, Dewey Farrell returns to Banner County, Oregon, the scene of his youth, to help a childhood friend. When he gets there the friend is dead. Questions like who were his parents, and why did the girl he love send him away with orders never to return, are still waiting for him, and litter his road to revenge. Along the way he’s pulled into the curious marijuana and gold culture of the hills, and finds secret experiments into the fauna growing under Banner County’s strangest landmark – a cloud covering a mountain that has never changed. While Dewey looks for his answers, a giant forest fire draws closer and an international billionaire dying of old age before fifty discovers the secret to his survival lies in Banner County. Dewey has to put his life on the line to save himself and the people he comes to cares about.

This novel introduces the Banner series by Ken Byers set in Banner County, Oregon where Mother Nature lurks dangerously close to the surface and the local cannabis can blow far more than minds.