he story begins as a gritty, NY crime drama as we meet Rudy Chance, a womanizing narcotics cop who is working both sides of the law. His partner Patty is clean, but he protects Rudy's secrets anyway, knowing at heart he is still a good man. When Chance crosses a drug lord, his wife and son are killed and Chance is devastated. Months later he draws his partner in for revenge on the man who killed his family but Chance is double-crossed and is killed while Patty is left in a coma. But this is only the beginning of the story as Chance soon realizes he's dead and encounters a man named Jordan (and is that a nod to the 1940's film, Here Comes Mr. Jordan?). Jordan takes chances to the world that is in-between Heaven and Hell. It is here where most souls go and receive their final chance at redemption in order to move onto Heaven. Here, greedy real estate salesmen must now help these souls find homes, and so on...
Chance is given his opportunity for salvation by joining the Gray Watch, sort of the police force of the realm. He's first resistant until he finds his alternative is to be sent to the Dark Cloud, there to battle endlessly for all eternity. Reluctantly he agrees and then begins his training program along with several other recruits where they are given powers and put into a "Danger Room" type training session. This is the one part of the book where it stumbles a bit. What had been a dark, urban fantasy now becomes a bit too "super hero styled". Soon the Watch is called on to return to Earth to capture a powerful evil entity that has escaped. Back on Earth, the Watch can only manifest by possessing the body of someone who was favorable to them in life. For Chance, this leaves only one possibility, his partner Patty, still lying in a coma in the hospital. What's more, Chance is warned that exerting too much force from the body will destroy not only that body, but the spirit possessing it as well, dooming it to the Dark Cloud.
