Anything for a disaster! Racina relocates the great Buffalo blizzard of this past winter, placing it squarely on the most improbable city possible: Los Angeles. Arctic air masses that have been bottled up for weeks suddenly break loose. L.A. is hit by icy rains that put the whole population on the skids, and then a warm spell is followed by a vast snowstorm that raises hell and is finally topped by a blizzard. Over 25,000 people die in houses not built for this kind of weather--which just gets worse as fantastic drifts are rapidly melted by the yearly hot air currents that turn the blizzard into a torrential rain at 70-sweltering-degrees and L.A. starts washing into the ocean on a sea of mud. Meanwhile, crazed bands of homeowners and starving citizens are breaking into each other's houses, looting is rampant, and folks who have laid up their treasures on earth find them devalued by the Wrath from above. Throughout all this, we focus on a wen-to-do family, the liberal, likable Sheppards, who are socked in and shooting at their neighbors while their fatally ill daughter writhes in pancreatic decay. There are a few lively touches of characterization, but one feels that this novel will melt from the mind as swiftly as the pages fly by.