Dead Cold

Geller spoons up a breezy whodunnit
Dead Cold by Uri Geller (Headline, £5.99)

CYNICS may snigger at paratrooper-turned-spoonbender Uri Geller's choice of narrator for his 10th novel - a psychic suspected of being a fake.

But, according to the blurb on the paperback, Geller is a celebrated "paranormalist" who has helped to track serial killers and discover oil using his eerie mental powers.

As for the plot - and, to give it some credit, it does have one - a fraud- hunting professor ends up getting burnt to death following an investigation into the alleged psychic's credentials.

Geller's breezy style isn't my cup of tea, but I will admit this novel isn't quite as bad as I was expecting.

It's principal flaw is the author's preference for rather clunky cliff-hangers at the end of chapters, but I suppose that is a standard format for whodunnits.

Anyone hoping for characters with any sort of depth will be disappointed with Dead Cold, but then those sort of readers are hardly likely to give this route-one fiction the time of day. At least it's free of pretension.

Overall, this is the sort of book that one could fall back on if stuck at a railway station for an hour or so.

Paul Stammers

Heartland Evening News,
December 6, 1999

From spoon bender to cliff-hangers!

Book reviews by John Ellis

BENDING spoons is probably what most people first think of when the name Uri Geller is mentioned.

But there is more to the world renowned paranormalist than being able to turn cutlery into a twisted, useless piece of metal.

A vegetarian and fervent promoter of peace, he has used his psychic gifts to track serial killers and work for the FBI and CIA and is the Mindpower coach to Premier League footballers, industrialists, Formula One drivers and racing cyclists.

As a columnist, he writes for The Times and GQ magazine as well as being syndicated in magazines around the globe.

Whether you believe in Geller's powers, or prefer to take.his claims with a large portion of salt (while taking

care not to bend the knives and forks at dinner) as you would expect, his latest novel is about mind bending powers.

Dead Cold, published by Headline Book Publishing, price £5.99, tells about Mikki who is a psychic.

At.least that's what the listeners to his popular radio show think, believing the charming, vnse-cracking New Yorker can really read their minds on air.

Other people think he’s a fake. Like Johannes-Kristen Ingman, professor of parapsychology and obsessive fraud-hunter, who’s determined to expose him.

And when Mikki agrees to submit to Ingman’s parapsychology tests, he unwittingly gives him the ammunition he needs.

But that’s just the start of Mikki’s problems. When Ingman’s charred corpse is discovered, he’s going to have to develop somne very special talents in double-quick time.

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Times Metro - November 27 - December 3, 1999

Our hero is a plausible radio pstychic whose past is catching up with him. The non spontaneous combustion of several characters draws us into a brisk whodunnit garnished with weirdos. But our unheroic hero (and it be only human to identify him a little bit with the author, a Times columnist and celebrated "paranormalist") is among the normal. More hokum than hocus-pocus, but a likeable yarn for a journey.

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The Huddersfield Daily Examiner - November 20, 1999
By Andrew Flynn

Seventies spoonbender Uri Geller now lives in some style after targeting his paranormal powers towards "Mindpower coaching" sportsmen and industrialists and writing columns syndicated around the world.

Not surprisingly he's stuck to his winning formulaby making the central character in the novel a psychic.

But is Mikki all he's cracked up to be ? Or is the wise-cracking Newyorker who purports to read peoples' minds on air via his popular radio show, really a fraud ?

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Headline Feature March 1999

Mikki is a psychic. At least that's what the listeners to his popular radio show think, believing the charming, wise-cracking New Yorker really can read their minds on-air.

Other people think he's a fake. Like Johannes-Kristian Ingman, professor of parapsychology and obsessive fraud-hunter, who's determined to expose him. And when Mikki agrees to submit to Ingman's parapsychology tests, he unwittingly gives him the vital ammunition he needs.

But that's just the start of Mikki's problems. When Ingman's charred corpse is discovered in his university office, where Mikki just happens to be trying to steal back the incriminating test Papers, he becomes the chief suspect in a murder inquiry.

If Mikki's going to stay out of jail and keep his career from being destroyed, he's going to have to start developing some very special talents in double-quick time...

 

Uri Geller, famous around the world for his mind-bending psychic powers, has led a unique life shrouded in debate and mystery. In thousands of TV appearances he has caused teaspoons to twist and broken watches to work - not just in the studio but in the homes of countless viewers. His uncanny ability to detect oil, precious metals and even a lost submarine has made him a multi-millionaire.

The world's most prestigious scientific magazine, Nature, published a paper on Uri's work at the Stanford Research Institute - a unique endorsement, and an irrefutable proof that his powers are genuine. His work for the CIA has ranged from using mind-power to wipe KGB computer files to attending nuclear peace talks to bombard delegates with positive thought waves. For decades this aspect of his career, like his extraordinary encounters with Paranormal entities, was too controversial to discuss.

Now he has drawn on his unparalleled experiences to write a series of mind-blowing thrillers.

YOU would think the last thing world-famous "psychic" Uri Geller would want to write a novel about would be a phoney member of his profession. As far as I am aware, the spoon-bending Israeli still has trouble convincing doubters that he is the real deal and not just a fantastically skilled illusionist. To write a thriller about a charlatan in the same line of work seems to be making a rod for his own back. Yet that's exactly what Geller does in Dead Cold, a thriller about false psychic disc jockey Mikki, a slim man with brown hair and brown eyes - remarkably similar to Uri himself - who appears to be irresistible to women, Mikki breezes superficially through life, yet he hides a dark secret: he has to pay off a debt to the Mob or he will be joining the spirits with whom he claims to be in touch. When a caller to his radio show offers him the chance of a substantial fast buck, he grabs it with both hands. But Mikki inadvertently becomes the number-one suspect in a series of gruesome murders, Despite myself, I found I was drawn into the tangled web woven by Geller in his story. His slick style is entertaining in a Chandleresque way, and the novel moves along at a cracking pace, Even if you are sceptical of Geller's paranormal talents, it's well worth giving his literary skills a go.

And frankly, I wish Dr Lecter had not interrupted my flow.

By now, the majority of the book-buying population will have digested Thomas Harris' latest tale of the serial-killing connoisseur.

And I wonder how many, like me, were totally disillusioned by the awful last 50 pages.

Anyway, back to Uri's Dead Cold. I never read his first novel, Ella, but I have to admit that I like Uri's writing style in the new book - it's very chatty, like the main character, Mikki, is your best friend trying to explain the situation over a pint.

Mikki is a psychic on a New York radio station, but not everyone believes in his talent. Step forward Johannes-Kristen Ingman, who is out to expose him as a fraud.

But when Ingman turns up horribly murdered, guess who the main suspect is.

Uri keeps the action flowing and the mind alert through a relatively short 240 pages.

One has to wonder, though, if the fate of Ingman is something Uri has dreamt of happening to some of those who try to debunk his powers.

"LAST night, last year, it's all the same to me. I'm a psychic. My mind lives in the future. Jane, there are certain facts about my mental make-up that you'll have to get used to - it's the price of my gift." And dialogue like this is the price the reader must pay for sampling spoon-bender Geller's second effort as a novelist. The words are spoken by popular radio "psychic" whose career is threatened by a professor of parapsychology out to expose him. Alas, the fraud-hunter comes to a nasty end ...

A must for romantics is A Woman for All Seasons by Julie Ellis (HarperCollins £6.99).

It follows the fortunes of Elizabeth Woolf who is born into a rich Jewish family

After falling in love with an actor she is made an outcast and flees to Melbourne with him. Justas she is poised for success as an actress tragedy strikes and she flees to America where she forges a career as a cinema star.

From the first World War to the 1950s, Elizabeth and her descendants are at the heart of the emerging entertainment industry from talkies to television.

Eileen Goude's Thorns of Truth (Penguin £5.99) is rich in passion and drama. In it we see how one moment of madness can lead to a lifetime of deceit. This novel revolves around Rachel and Rose who were switched at birth.

A Mild Suicide by Christina Koning (Penguin £6.99) provides a surprising fresh look at that well studied subject - the eternal triangle.

It centres around Saul, who leaves his wife Virginia, in America while he completes his postgraduate studies at Edinburgh University.

He moves in with girlfriend Catherine and two of her friends and all is fine until Virginia pays him a surprise visit.

And with her arrival comes new shock waves of desire, deceit and betrayal.

In the cold war Soviet Union, even passion is political as is vividly illustrated in The Angels of Russia, (Piatkus £6.99) the first of a trilogy of novels by Patricia le Roy about the fall and legacy of communism.

Stephanie meets a dissident Russian student in Leningrad and agrees to a marriage of convenience to help him escape, but her suspicions about his real motives for defecting are soon aroused.

If you think a little murder and mayhem will add spice to your holiday sample the delights of Riding the Snake by Stephen Cannell (Michael Joseph £9.99). This is the story of a Los Angeles playboy and cop lured into a labyrinth of violent secrecy - a deadly web which hides the multibillion dollar Chinese criminal conspiracy already affecting the highest levels of U S government.

And there are plenty of thrills in Uri Geller's Dead Cold (Headline £9.99) which centres around Mikki, a radio show host who claims to be psychic.

But, Johannes-Kristian Ingman, professor of parapsychology and obsessive fraud-hunter is determined to expose him as a fake.

So when the professor, who has some incriminating evidence, is found dead in suspicious circumstances Mikki realises he will have to develop some special talents if he is to stay out of jail and stop his career from being ruined.

In Undertow by Emlyn Rees (Review £9.99) journalist James Sawday is sent to a seaside town to cover a murder - the third by a serial killer who chops his victims hands off.

The killing brings back shades of the past for James and he has to dig up everything he has worked so hard to bury. And what he is going to find could cost him his sanity and even his life.