The world has two faces. The natural and the supernatural. The faces we see every day. The faces of those filing past us in an almost zombie-like stupor, numb to the horrors of everyday life or driven to madness by the pain and agony of modern-day existence - and those are the people who aren't zombies or monsters!
Cal McDonald is a detective with one foot in the real world, and one in the world of magic. For Cal, the horrors we all dream about in the fevered darkness of the night are all too real, kept at bay through an almost constant influx of drugs to numb the pain, but never erase it. McDonald is Cut from the same mold as Sam Spade, Jake Gittes, and the famous detectives of Chandler, and Spillane.
Cal McDonald, whether he likes it or not, is all that stands between us and the nightmare world just outside our vision.