Sinister Secrets: Raff Rafferty Mystery Series, Book 5 is a mystery/thriller written by Robert Joseph. Raff has been assigned to the Ryan Medical Center in downtown Seattle, Washington, by the Bishop. While he had expected to be given a church when he was ordained, the chaplain position seemed a good fit for a former police detective. When a dying young man is dropped off at the emergency exit by a woman in a cherry-red Corvette, the emergency room nurse, Dan Miller, was concerned that she was driving away without giving him any idea what was wrong with the man. Doug Osborne was the first person to be eventually diagnosed with Mbuku Fever, a condition that was characterized by purple lesions and was invariably fatal. Raff's friend, emergency room physician, Amir Hallaby, and the chief pathologist, Dr. Wolfington Chu, performed Osborne's autopsy, but all the body’s samples were immediately spirited away by Dr. Henry Hammel, who was recently appointed head of the viral research division of the hospital, making the hospital dependent upon him alone for a cure. Raff, Hallaby and Miller suspect that the victim, who had received a hepatitis vaccination at the Medical Center, was deliberately dosed with the deadly virus.

Robert Joseph's mystery/thriller, Sinister Secrets: Raff Rafferty Mystery Series, Book 5, is fast-paced, original and quite entertaining. Raff is now an ordained priest, but he's still very much in demand by the women he meets in the course of business. And he still definitely has sleuthing in his blood. I enjoyed the Seattle and Amazon locations this book was set in, especially the islands in the Puget Sound. Dan Miller, the Indian ER nurse and Raff's friend and running partner, is a marvelous character, and the two of them make a grand sleuthing team. Sinister Secrets is an intriguing medical thriller with overtones from the past that result in some impressively evil villains and a few equally violent and lurid scenes. Joseph includes enough background material for new readers to read this book first; however, I appreciated seeing Raff's evolution from police detective to priest first-hand and would recommend reading the books in this series in order. Sinister Secrets is highly recommended.

Robert Joseph spins a menacing tale in Sinister Secrets. One man believes his money gives him supreme power. Another man’s devotion sets out to prove him wrong. Gabriel “Raff” Rafferty was once a homicide detective in California and New York City. He is now a priest. Father Rafferty is the chaplain at Ryan Medical Center in Seattle. Out of nowhere Mbuku Fever breaks out in Seattle. Hospital officials dread an epidemic. City officials want to avoid panic. Raff’s cop instincts take over; he fears the release of the deadly virus is no accident. When a beautiful pharmaceutical CEO, Anja Kramer, suddenly takes an intimate interest in the not available priest, his suspicions are heightened. Her companions are creepy individuals. One is an egomaniacal billionaire from Sweden who masks his thirst for power with benevolence, and the other is an esteemed but sadistic virologist, who is infatuated with his chimpanzee. When Dr. Amir Hallaby is brutally murdered after discovering a possible anti-viral agent for the disease, Raff realizes that something grotesquely evil is going on. Raff partners up with his friend, Dan Miller, a male nurse at the hospital, vowing “vengeance might be the Lord’s, but justice is going to be ours.”

Sinister Secrets certainly lives up to its name. Robert Joseph writes a story full of suspense and diabolical action. The plot weaves in multiple conflicts; man versus man, man versus disease, and man versus society. Joseph takes the notorious good versus evil to a whole new level. Just when you thought that neo-Nazism has been put to sleep, Sinister Secret resurrects it. Joseph includes a broad spectrum of characters. Descendants of Hitler’s SS, a Muslim doctor, a cop turned priest, a Native American male nurse, a boastful Swedish billionaire who thinks he is God, and a vicious chimpanzee make up the eclectic cast of characters. Joseph uses a bit of foreshadowing, giving hints as to what possibly could happen. But he also keeps the reader guessing by throwing in a few surprise punches and revealing the ominous dangers of pharmaceutical research. Just how far is too far? Do medical advancements really promote world health or could they be contaminated terrorizing methods to obtain supreme power? Sinister Secrets is a sensational new age account of the Third Reich’s cleansing methods by exterminating mankind’s “rabble,” - the homeless, the crime-ridden, and the tribal. It makes you wonder, could this really happen?