Super-bankable, way-hot movie star Nadia Wentworth has found her dream role: the all-powerful, eternally beautiful Kali-Ra, Queen of Doom--one of pulp fiction's most famous characters. Even better, no one stands between Nadia owning all the rights to the Kali-Ra novels. As far as Nadia's assistant, Melanie, can tell, Kali-Ra's creator, dissolute 1920s novelist Valerian Ricardo, left no heirs. So it seems that no power on earth can stop the return of Kali-Ra--or prevent Nadia from gaining untold profits and worldwide mega-stardom. . . .That is, until a cast of mysterious characters descends on Nadia's exotic Beverly Hills mansion--putting the level-headed Melanie in a scenario weirder than anything even she's ever seen. Nick Iversen, Valerian's great-great-nephew from Minneapolis, wants the truth about his dubious heritage. The writer's wacked-out widow, Lila, hungers to spread the "divine power" of his words and control his new fortune on the earthly plane. Haplessly sleazy lawyer Quentin Smith is out to claim the profits of Kali-Ra for his unscrupulous employer. And the mysterious Callie might have a more sinister connection to Valer