The Paradise Prophecy-Robert Browne

The Paradise Prophecy
Robert Browne
Dutton, Jul 21 2011, $25.95
ISBN 9780525952237

At Trinity Baptist College in Harrison, Louisiana, Professor Sebastian “Batty” LaLaurie teaches Religious Studies and Rhetoric, but is on administrative leave due to a lecture that condemns God. A widower, he suffers from nightmares and has turned to alcohol to abate the pain of his wife Rebecca’s death while acknowledging his beliefs were shattered when she died.

The State Department Section unit sends agent Bernadette Callahan to Sao Paulo, Brazil to investigate the burning death of Christian singer Gabriela Zuada. The locals swear the devil murdered Gabriela, but the American thinks a serial killer added her to the list of the dead. Needing expertise into the occult and Milton, Bernadette contacts Batty whose nightmares come from surviving a trek beyond. She shows him Gabriela’s picture and he reacts stunned as she stars in his dark dreams with her death mirroring that of his late wife. The professor and the agent follow the homicides to Istanbul, but the potential Armageddon is in Los Angeles where Michael the Archangel walks the earth hunting down rogue angels harming the offspring of Adam and Eve, and Beliel and her three Fallen teammates meet.

With nods to Milton’s Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, and to the Walken Prophecy movies, The Paradise Prophecy is a superb rendition of good and evil as the agents of God and Satan battle for the souls of mankind. Action-packed from the onset, Batty the “fallen” Milton scholar and Bernadette the pragmatic doubter make a delightful pairing as they argue over the clues starting with the toasted corpses that he insists come from agents of Hell and she insists the one doing the killing is a psychopath. Fans will appreciate Robert Browne’s excellent thriller.

Harriet Klausner