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SANCTUARY
by Raymond Khoury
Orion, August 2007
352 pages
12.99 GBP
ISBN: 0752875884


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

A younger Evelyn Bishop worked as an archeologist in Iraq, south of Baghdad. There her team uncovered an underground chamber near an old mosque and a small trove of cuneiform tablets.

Upon further exploration of additional underground chambers, which had been tucked away for centuries, Evelyn first saw the Ouroboros, a large circular carving of a snake eating is own tail. The roots of this old mystical symbol could be traced back thousands of years. The image was found in many ancient civilizations and held a firm place in the symbolism of alchemists over the centuries. Ultimately Evelyn discovered paper folios richly covered with texts and decorated with geometric patterns.

Now she has been approached by one of the workers from the time of that dig, over 30 years ago. Farouk had photos of the ancient codex; he told her he was trying to sell them for someone who had been murdered. Farouk left Iraq and came to her in Beirut where she has taught for 15 years. In 2005, she could still remember those heady days.

Evelyn’s daughter Mia is embarking on a new project in the Middle East. Mother and daughter see each other rarely and meet for a drink to catch up. Mia notices someone watching her mother; then Evelyn gets a phone call and says she must leave. The furtive man at the bar leaves right after her. When Mia notices that Evelyn has forgotten her cell phone she rushes off after her.

The two women are caught up in events of an unimaginable conspiracy. A shadowy, unknown man wants the codex and thinks he can exchange Evelyn for information. When Evelyn is kidnapped, Mia seeks help from the American embassy; soon her new protector, Corben, presumably a CIA agent, attempts to find Evelyn but he seems equally as interested in finding the codex at the heart of the matter. When a UN representative arrives and also claims to be working to locate Evelyn, Mia doesn’t know who to trust. It is obvious that they are both keeping something from her.

History, mystery and archeology intermix in equal amounts in SANCTUARY. The author has a wealth of knowledge and many facts which he imparts a lot of within the pages of this novel. While most of it is essential to the furthering of the plot, there are extraneous details that occasionally cause the plot to drag in places. But, not to worry, the author deftly accelerates things before the reader gets too bogged down in details. This is a good story, well told; perhaps the ending is a little too much like Shangri-la, but this is fiction – isn’t it?

Reviewed by Lorraine Gelly, October 2007

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