Ray & Lolo in the Neitherworld: Ghosts and the City--First in a Series

Ray and Louise (affectionately known as Lolo) have each been victims of separate, random murders. They meet in Dark San Diego, parallel world between the living and the dead, also known as the Neitherworld. It is a spirit world, unseen by the living, but every bit as real. It is, you might say, the final subway stop before the long, dark road over the horizon to Eternity.Here, for a time, they will be Ghost and Ghostess.

Ray was a devoted, married man. His wife Tamsin cheated on him and betrayed him in a most fatal manner. Louise was an adorable, pretty young French woman from Quebec, working hard as a waitress while completing her Arts studies at a San Diego university. Her customers loved her for her sweetness and her adorable accent--all but one man, a loser who took her life in a spat of mean-spiritedness and evil.

For some short and unknown time, Ray and Lolo become kindred souls in the Neitherworld, where they find unexpected love and satisfaction--and amazing adventures.

To complicate matters, there is Tamsin--Ray's wife, who had an affair with Ray's best friend, sort of engineered Ray's demise, and is now married to that other fellow. Ghosts have feelings, and Ray is a bit blue, but Lolo cheers him up in her amber-glowing paranormal café for denizens of Dark San Diego.

There is also Jonas Nestor--chief shaman and director of Compass News, which gets its name from the four points of the compass (N, E, W, S). He is that rare living person who can see dead people, speak with us, walk in our world--negotiate, scheme, fix things. Compass News is not a media organization, as the name might suggest, but a fixer shop in Dark San Diego where (as the old Cream song about a white room says) the shadows run from themselves.

Jonas Nestor's dread work takes him to a swamp on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, where swamps form international wilderness full of murder, mayhem, and drug runners. With the help of Ray and Lolo, Jonas will set some things straight between the worlds of the living and the dead.

About the Series

So far in this series, as of October 2015, there are two stories about the Neitherworld (Ghosts and the City). Locally, it is also known as Dark San Diego (or San Diego Noir). This is the first story.

The Neitherworld is a place in the hereafter--neither here nor there, beyond time but before eternity--where we can still do things (sort of) before the gray and faceless Handlers with white gloves come through the walls to take us to our final train stop (of which we will thankfully never know anything).

We stop in the Neitherworld (known locally as Dark San Diego or San Diego Noir) because each of us has yet to accomplish at least one more mission, usually involving unaware living folks, as well as our own unfinished business.

In the spirit world are ghosts, seraphs, angels, centaurs--all manner of beings from classical and green mythologies. A few living persons can speak with the dead--shamans like Jonas Nestor of the Compass News Bureau. Jonas specializes in solving paranormal crimes, fixing what's broken, making little changes that repair shattered lives.

Here in the spirit world, somber light falls like rain. The very air itself is poetry, full of moody rain like tears, but often shiny like a smile about to break through. Things are not all sad and gloomy. Ghosts can love each other, and people, and do good or heroic deeds. Theirs is a world filled with surprises.

Along the Shore Road (which doesn't exist in the world of the living), houses are built of gloom. Green and ruby coach lights shine dimly on the ghosts who hang around waiting for the mission that will set them free. Take a drive along the bTake a drive along the beach where the sun never shines (yes, this ocean is a different drift, so to speak). We get to meet a few of the strange dwellers here…and the adventure (Ghosts and the City) begins.