What happens to a vampire after he dies? Really and finally dies? Aside from the stake-in-the-heart, crumbling-of-flaky-burned-flesh, what really happens?

COLD IN CALIFORNIA playfully explores these questions and proposes that even the worst of the supernatural world gets one more chance to earn heaven or hell. Twice-baked vampire, Gabriel Strickland, rudely discovers this fact when he’s whisked from the strange incident that caused his final demise and into a holding tank of sorts located in West Hollywood. He learns that he and several other deceased supernatural creatures must await a final judgment for their souls. A society has formed within that helps them all function outside the walls of the holding tank. Eighty creatures, including other awaiting dead vampires, pixies, a legendary Navaho stick man and bothersome leprechauns, struggle together to earn brownie points (against their natures) and wait out what could be centuries of purgatory.

There are rules and there are responsibilities that come along with the wait. Gabriel receives dubious advice from Crudo Cushman, a controlling troll who runs the place, and some help from a former werewolf to cope with the extreme challenging tests of conscience ahead. For the first time in nearly eighty years, Gabriel feels alive, actually functions as a living mortal, but not quite. There are always quirks in the plan and he faces them all.

Enter, the beautiful woman, Dorianna Gallagher who not only knocks Gabriel off his feet, but also attracts the attention of an evil warlock who has designs on her, professionally and physically. Dori represents everything normal and alive to Gabriel and he treks through several difficulties to earn her love.

In the end it is the true, fiery battle of supernatural verses supernatural and good verses evil; and even in the face of heartbreak, Gabriel will see the light.

Future novels in the series include; MONKEY JUMP, where Gabriel is teamed up with Dori as his assistant and they are sent to explore among other things, an unruly holding tank in Arizona; AMSTERDAM DAMNED, where he and Dori visit the Netherlands to advise their counterpart and inevitably discover the strangeness of a much older and far more dangerous European holding tank; and HOMEWARD BOUND AND GAGGED, where Gabriel takes a leave of absence from his duties to locate his missing assistant and love, Dori.