Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The Devil’s Elixir-Raymond Khoury

The Devil’s Elixir


Raymond Khoury

Dutton, Dec 22 2011, $26.95

ISBN: 9780525952435



Drug kingpin Raoul “El Brujo” Navarro has been using a rare herb the Devil’s Elixir for years. He realizes that if the drug can be converted into a synthesized pill, he can make a fortune.



While Navarro sets in motion the manufacturing of the Devil’s Elixier, DEA agent Michelle Martinez calls her former boyfriend FBI agent Sean Reilly at his Mamaroneck, New York house. She tells him thugs with guns entered her San Diego home firing shots at her and hitting her boyfriend. Sean and his girlfriend Tess Chaykin head for the West Coast where they soon connect dots between Martinez, her four years old son, Navarro and his hoods, and law enforcement officials as whoever controls the Devil’s Elixir may, like what happened centuries ago in Mexico, end civilization as we know it today.



Although the premise seems over the top of the Mayan pyramids of Teotihuacan, somehow Raymond Khoury makes the elixir seem plausible. The return of Sean and Tess will please fans of the Templar sagas as they work another odd case. The Devil’s Elixir is a superb thriller as time is running out on the protagonists while their enemies are a drug sorcerer and law enforcement operative in which neither side has any moral fiber even with the death of civilization imminent.



Harriet Klausner





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