At seventy-two years old, Richard W. Perkins sits at his desk in Bath, Maine — a small brackish riverside town — and writes with the urgency of someone who has seen something the rest of us have not yet looked at directly.
His debut thriller, THE Insider, Book One: The Reckoning Is Upon Us, did not begin with a plot outline. It began with a dream. The same dream. Five nights in a row.
What he produced is not safe faith fiction. It is a full-throttle spiritual thriller that places the very real horror of child trafficking inside a cosmic war between angels and demons — and dares the reader to ask what they would do if an angel said: the mission is yours, if you choose it.
The Dream That Started It All
Perkins is not the kind of writer who waits for inspiration. He is the kind who wakes on the fifth consecutive night of the same dream and decides the universe is asking something of him.
He threw himself into research, uncovering the histories of angels and demons, the theology of free will, and the documented reality of global child exploitation networks. What emerged was a thriller with teeth — action-driven, spiritually grounded, and morally urgent.
“I wrote this book to create awareness in the hope of saving more children. Free will is one of God's greatest gifts — and with it comes the weight of every choice we make.” — Richard W. Perkins
Faith Without Sanitisation
Christian fiction has long been accused of avoiding the ugliest corners of human experience. Perkins walked directly into one of them and planted a spiritual war inside it.
His villain, Allison, runs a multi-million dollar global exploitation network at the behest of the demon Abaddon. His hero, Francis Chabrov, is not a soldier or a saint — he is a married fifty-something father of two who answers a divine call his wife knows nothing about, and whose odd behaviour she is absolutely not ignoring.
Hollywood Takes Notice
Submitted to a long-standing Hollywood production company, THE Insider did not quietly disappear into a slush pile. It is now officially in development as a major motion picture.
The novel's press release reached over 250 media outlets, generating responses from Christian networks, radio stations, book reading groups and online marketing companies.
Nearly Fifty Years of Writing
Perkins has been writing for close to fifty years, creating imagery for industries spanning entertainment, skiing and snowboarding, gardening and workplace safety. He is the author of eight books in the illustrated children's series The Salamander King.
As Managing Partner of Brilliant Kids Book Publishing — whose motto, “Every Child is Brilliant in Their Own Way,” was inspired by a young man named Jay who had Down Syndrome — he has built a publishing house around the belief that stories for and about children carry a particular moral weight.
“Do you believe Angels exist? I do — and know they are the real superheroes.”
Themes for Discussion
- Free will and divine assignment: Francis is chosen, but not forced.
- The reality of evil: cosmic evil grounded in a documented, human-faced horror.
- Faith without certainty: acting as though the outcome will be good when you cannot see the path.
- The unseen heroism of angels: you never see the good deed, but you know it happened.
Book Details
- Author
- Richard W. Perkins
- Genre
- Spiritual Thriller / Faith & Fiction
- Cover Art
- Anh Bui
- Illustrations
- Dibyoshree Sarkar
- Publisher
- Brilliant Kids Book Publishing, Bath, Maine
- Next in Series
- Book Two expected November 2026
Where to Find the Book & Author
“I invite readers to choose exactly what the earthly balance should be between good and evil — for without evil, good could never exist.”
THE Insider is exactly the kind of book our community was built for: one that refuses to make an uncomfortable subject comfortable.
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