The Paradise Prophecy

Milton's Paradise Lost provides the backdrop for Browne's riveting, cinematic novel, which charts an epic battle between good and evil. When saint-like pop singer Gabriela Zuada is found burned to a crisp in her dressing room after a performance in S%C3%A3o Paulo, Brazil, on the last night of her Glory Revealed World Tour, Bernadette Callahan, field agent for the top-secret government spy agency known as Section, investigates. After other horribly burned bodies surface, Milton scholar Sebastian "Batty" LaLaurie persuades Bernadette that Gabriela's demise is no ordinary murder. Indeed, Beelzebub, Belial, Moloch, and Mammon%E2%80%94a quartet of fallen angels who appropriate human "skins" as a disguise%E2%80%94are behind the deaths as well as an unholy plot to release Satan to rule over humankind. Only the archangel Michael and his band of puny but courageous humans can defeat the demons. The author, who also writes as Robert Gregory Browne (Down Among the Dead Men), offers consistently smart prose and an ending that points to future thrillers set in this fascinating world. (July)