Seven years have passed since Jack, Owen, Anna, and Chloe last saw each other. Their lives have moved tangentially in different directions. Now, disillusioned with life in the States, they decide to live as expats in Mexico. Life is simple, idyllic, and fulfilling. But when the opportunity arises, Jack and Owen team up in their prior careers as reporter and photographer, only to find themselves caught in mortal danger.
This is the story of Rubin Kranovich. Rubin is a bellhop at a fancy New Orleans hotel deep in the French Quarter. He is a Quarter Rat. All of Rubin’s friends are Quarter Rats. But Rubin does not plan to make this his whole life. His hopes are big; his ambitions are grand. When not at work and dressed in a red jacket and red cap, looking like an organ grinder monkey, Rubin can be found with his fellow Quarter Rats in the bars and cafés — ever developing new ways to make a buck. Always scheming, always coming up with new gigs to perform. Quarter Rats is a few raucous days in the life of Rubin Kranovich. But it is also the story of Clifford Ritter, who drives a taxi in New Orleans, and Eddie Clabberman, who is working on a novel, a tome, if he ever finishes it. Meet Ramona, Rubin’s girlfriend, and Sebastian, Rubin’s best friend, and Horace Slagg. Like Rubin, they are all Quarter Rats — for better or for worse.
Deep beneath the two-century-old library building of Graebner College, in the bucolic town of Covington, Vermont, Sam Whitney and Lenore Simensen come upon an ancient medieval ritual called The Code. With it, they are able to predict where financial markets are going. Vast sums of money are made. Everything is perfect - perfect until something very dark and very dangerous is unleashed. Unaware of what is happening to her, Lenore starts on a rampage of killing. Katy Malone and Nick Sanchez, two ace students at Graebner, discover what Sam and Lenore are up to. All find themselves trapped in a deadly web spun by The Code. In the end, during one of the rituals Sam Malone kills Lenore when she comes after him with a knife deep in the underground chamber. In the last chamber we learn that the evilness is not gone; it is merely transformed to Sam. It will continue.