Dead Secret: A Tony Gabriel paranormal mystery thriller

ABOUT Richard Milton

Richard Milton
I'm a British writer and journalist, and author of a dozen titles, both fiction and non-fiction.

Description

Investigative journalist Tony Gabriel inherits a bizarre mystery when he is left the research papers and books of a long-dead Cambridge historian - and a human skull. With no clue to the meaning of this mysterious legacy, Tony puts his years as a reporter to use to investigate who he really is - and is stunned by what he uncovers.

"Suddenly, all the rules of his life seemed to have been broken at once."

Tony's investigations lead him to The Chadwick Foundation - a wealthy and secretive institution whose beliefs in the paranormal both repel and attract him. Are they just rich, powerful people playing an elaborate game, or have they truly gained paranormal powers to penetrate the mystery of the future?

Eve Canning is the keeper of The Foundation's secrets, a powerful and enigmatic woman whose regal beauty turns Tony’s search for the truth into a very personal quest - and his life and beliefs upside down.

And she seems to know more about Tony than he knows about himself. Is he from an ordinary suburban background, as he believes? Or is he descended from the Bourbon Kings and Queens of France - possessing royal blood in his veins and inherited psychic gifts?

"You see more than ordinary people. It's in your blood."

Tony is bewildered by the horrifying conspiracy he begins to unravel. Can human heads really be used to predict the future of entire nations? Why would the immensely wealthy Chadwick Foundation pay $7 million for the skull of Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev? Is the British government and its intelligence services involved? When Tony witnesses the Home Secretary die in an elaborate sex ritual at a Belgravia dinner party he knows he has gone too far to back away.

He also discovers that Eve's form of lovemaking is addictive - and has a price. She is a sadist who specialises in erotic asphyxiation. And she has revived a ritual form of sex from French revolutionary times that literally makes death an aphrodisiac.

"Are you afraid of me? She asked. Yes, he said. . “.

Tony has more to fear than just the Chadwick Foundation. Sinister French scientist César Casimir - expelled from the Pasteur Institute under a cloud - wants to make Tony the subject of an experiment to prove the existence of precognitive powers - but it is an experiment conceived in hell, where success means death.

“I am the keeper of a great secret. I have been looking for someone worth sharing it with.”

When Tony is initiated by Eve and her paranormal cult into the ultimate terrifying secret, he has a decision to make that can cost him his life: he can achieve a form of immortality but only by risking everything.

What Reviewers said about this paranormal mystery thriller

"This is a fascinating, and spine-chilling tale told by a Master of the craft of writing and is one of the few genuinely 'unputdownable' books I have read."

"Dead Secret is a story that has it all: a terrific plot that interweaves eternal youth with alchemy and conspiracy theories; money like you've never dreamed of, sex exactly as you've dreamed of, and death as it's never quite been portrayed before, and that portrayal is a nightmare."

"Dead Secret" contains several scenes of highly unusual and graphically-depicted sex. Don't try this at home - unless you're sure what you're doing.”

This novel is a delight from start to finish - covering everything from mediums, through telepathy, clairvoyance, apparitions, Jung and synchronicity, the I-Ching, numerology, physiognomy, out of body experiences - not forgetting a secret, dangerous sexual rite which leads to such intense pleasure that it can trip the mind into a higher state of consciousness - and even kill.”

Dead Secret: A Tony Gabriel paranormal mystery thriller

 

 


"It was obvious from the day he was born that the Gabriel boy took after his mother in every way. He would be a marked man from birth to death . . ."

Investigative journalist Tony Gabriel inherits a bizarre mystery when he is left the research papers and books of a long-dead Cambridge historian - and a human skull. With no clue to the meaning of this mysterious legacy, Tony puts his years as a reporter to use to investigate who he really is - and is stunned by what he uncovers.

"Suddenly, all the rules of his life seemed to have been broken at once."

Tony's investigations lead him to The Chadwick Foundation - a wealthy and secretive institution whose beliefs in the paranormal both repel and attract him. Are they just rich, powerful people playing an elaborate game, or have they truly gained paranormal powers to penetrate the mystery of the future?

Eve Canning is the keeper of The Foundation's secrets, a powerful and enigmatic woman whose regal beauty turns Tony’s search for the truth into a very personal quest - and his life and beliefs upside down.

And she seems to know more about Tony than he knows about himself. Is he from an ordinary suburban background, as he believes? Or is he descended from the Bourbon Kings and Queens of France - possessing royal blood in his veins and inherited psychic gifts?

"You see more than ordinary people. It's in your blood."

Tony is bewildered by the horrifying conspiracy he begins to unravel. Can human heads really be used to predict the future of entire nations? Why would the immensely wealthy Chadwick Foundation pay $7 million for the skull of Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev? Is the British government and its intelligence services involved? When Tony witnesses the Home Secretary die in an elaborate sex ritual at a Belgravia dinner party he knows he has gone too far to back away.

He also discovers that Eve's form of lovemaking is addictive - and has a price. She is a sadist who specialises in erotic asphyxiation. And she has revived a ritual form of sex from French revolutionary times that literally makes death an aphrodisiac.

"Are you afraid of me? She asked. Yes, he said. . “.

Tony has more to fear than just the Chadwick Foundation. Sinister French scientist César Casimir - expelled from the Pasteur Institute under a cloud - wants to make Tony the subject of an experiment to prove the existence of precognitive powers - but it is an experiment conceived in hell, where success means death.

“I am the keeper of a great secret. I have been looking for someone worth sharing it with.”

When Tony is initiated by Eve and her paranormal cult into the ultimate terrifying secret, he has a decision to make that can cost him his life: he can achieve a form of immortality but only by risking everything.

What Reviewers said about this paranormal mystery thriller

"This is a fascinating, and spine-chilling tale told by a Master of the craft of writing and is one of the few genuinely 'unputdownable' books I have read."

"Dead Secret is a story that has it all: a terrific plot that interweaves eternal youth with alchemy and conspiracy theories; money like you've never dreamed of, sex exactly as you've dreamed of, and death as it's never quite been portrayed before, and that portrayal is a nightmare."

"Dead Secret" contains several scenes of highly unusual and graphically-depicted sex. Don't try this at home - unless you're sure what you're doing.”

This novel is a delight from start to finish - covering everything from mediums, through telepathy, clairvoyance, apparitions, Jung and synchronicity, the I-Ching, numerology, physiognomy, out of body experiences - not forgetting a secret, dangerous sexual rite which leads to such intense pleasure that it can trip the mind into a higher state of consciousness - and even kill.”

Click the 'Look Inside'

 

As a science writer and journalist, I’m reminded every day that we live in a world ruled by scientific rationalism. Governments, companies, institutions of every kind are expected to behave in a strictly rational way. What you see in the world around you is what you get - the only reality is what you can see, hear, feel, smell and taste. And there is no such thing as a free lunch. We even have organisations like CSICOP - the Committee for Scientific Investigations of Claims Of the Paranormal - scientific skeptics who have appointed themselves to guard science against the incursions of superstition and ignorance. If any scientist should step out of line by suggesting that there might be more to the world than we know, he or she is quickly sat on by the guardians of science - the Paradigm Police. French psychologist and statistician Michel Gauquelin published evidence that he said showed "highly significant statistical correlations between planetary positions and the birth times of eminently successful people." Gauquelin became the target of intense criticism by CSICOP and others for his support of astrology. Robert Jahn and Roger Nelson of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab at Princeton University, have accumulated years of statistical trials on microscopically small psychokinetic effects - effects that are way beyond chance expectation. Again the researchers came under intense fire from skeptics because their work appears to confirm the existence of psychokinesis - the ability of the mind to affect the world. This kind of reaction is pretty much the norm today. One prominent British skeptic, Dr Jonathan Miller, said on Channel4 TV, “I wouldn’t believe in homeopathy even if you showed me the evidence.” This might seem an unusual position for a scientist to adopt, but it is symptomatic of the age in which we live (“Science is the religion of the twentieth century”, said George Bernard Shaw.) There have always been skeptics and inquisitions to make sure we all toe the accepted line. Antoine Lavoisier, who makes a fictional appearance in Dead Secret, was the father of scientific measurement, and secretary of the prestigious Academie des Sciences. Yet he refused to believe that meteorites were real. He told his fellow Academicians, “Gentlemen, stones cannot fall from the sky, because there are no stones in the sky.” But what would happen, I wondered, if one of these highly rational skeptics was confronted by inescapable evidence of the paranormal? Not just in the form of dry statistical variation in the lab, but in the shape of a beautiful woman - powerful, challenging and a sexual predator? A woman, in fact, like Eve Canning? And who better to subject to my experiment than a sceptical science editor of a magazine? It was at this point that I sat down and wrote; “Bad news is good news, when you work on a newspaper. . . .” So which parts of Dead Secret are true, and which parts made up? The truth is, I don’t know any more than you do. But I have had a lot of fun imagining a world in which it could all be true and I hope you’ve enjoyed exploring that world, too.

By Amazon Customer ***** Well-researched, well-written; thoroughly enjoyable.
"This is a fascinating, and spine-chilling tale told by a Master of the craft of writing and is one of the few genuinely 'unputdownable' books I have read."
 
By FMCG ***** A superb book on literal, supernatural skulduggery.
"Dead Secret is a story that has it all: a terrific plot that interweaves eternal youth with alchemy and conspiracy theories; money like you've never dreamed of, sex exactly as you've dreamed of, and death as it's never quite been portrayed before, and that portrayal is a nightmare."

By Tartarus ***** “An intriguing paranormal thriller.
“Richard Milton is most well known for his non-fiction works Shattering the Myths of Darwinism and Alternative Science. Dead Secret is his first work of fiction, and I must say he's done a good job with it.”
 
By 100WordReviewer ***** Stimulating, thought-provoking and enjoyable thriller.
“I read and enjoyed "Dead Secret" a couple of years ago in hard copy. It's a stimulating, entertaining and thought-provoking thriller combining Milton's in-depth story-telling and scientific expertise to powerful effect. I have no hesitation in recommending "Dead Secret" to anyone looking for a fast-paced, enjoyable read with plenty of plot twists and surprises. Bonus: "Dead Secret" contains several scenes of highly unusual and graphically-depicted sex. Don't try this at home - unless you're sure what you're doing.”
 
By An Amazon Customer ***** A rollercoaster paranormal thriller
“For an amateur Fortean like myself (that is, someone interested in allegedly paranormal and unexplained phenomena) this novel is a delight from start to finish - it manages to include scenes covering everything from mediums, through telepathy, clairvoyance, apparitions, Jung and synchronicity, the I-Ching, numerology, physiognomy, out of body experiences, mad scientists, and conspiracy theories, to the immortal Count St. Germain - not forgetting a secret, dangerous sexual rite which leads to such intense pleasure that it can trip the mind into a higher state of conciousness - and even kill.”
 
"If I could, I would give this book six stars!”