Informed that his renegade-scientist son is in jail for murder and domestic-terrorist activity, cattle rancher Tyson Hadley gets caught in a convoluted investigation of spiritual revelation dampered by quite radical murder. On a rainy morning in 1969 a brilliant San Francisco Seminary student ceremoniously ingests a psychedelic - and becomes either psychotic or enlightened. When he begins speaking publically as if channeling the new Jesus, somebody shoots him dead. The angel is put down - and his best friend Bob Hadley gets arrested for that crime, and also accused of stealing four quarts of pure LSD from a federal research center. Struggling to deal with a devious MK-Ultra mind-manipulation conspiracy, a wild-cop love affair and a perverted CIA agent - plus Alan Watts and two more murders - deputy-sheriff Tyson and his son Bob battle to maintain their father-son relationship while chasing to ground a bizarre home-grown terrorist.