The Sanctuary by Raymond Khoury

First of all, I have to admit that this is a hard book to pen my review. Though the main idea of the book is simple, it took me quite some time to put my thoughts into words. In fact, I’ve actually finished reading the book quite some time ago and I’ve lagged in adding this book in my blog list. :-/

IMMORTALITY.

This very word sums up the overall plot for this book. What would we do in order to achieve immortality? The prospect of treating aging just like a disease instead of a natural phenomenon seems like an allure too good to be true. However, if we see from the multitude of cosmetic advertisements bombarding our mass media each day; their main selling point will always be anti-aging or reversal of aging process. Billions of dollars are spent each year on such experiments/gimmicks. As such, it is not surprising that a lot of people would kill each other just to get a taste of that as the plot of the book suggests.

The story started off at Portugal in 1750 when the Prince of San Severo – Raimundo di Sangro accuses Marquis de Montferrat as an imposter and did his best to pry the secrets harboured by the fake Marquis who barely escaped the pursuit leaving the fuming prince with new kind of obsession and would stop at nothing to get his hand on it.

After the incident at 1750, the story was fast forwarded to year 2003 at Baghdad, in which an army unit tracking Saddam’s cronies accidentally stumbled upon a fortress and made startling discovery on a hidden, state-of-the-art lab where gruesome experiments conducted by Saddam’s regime under the cloak of legitimate scientific research using actual human being instead of lab rats.

When the regime was torn asunder by the coalition forces, the brilliant scientist involved in the despicable experiments called “Hakeem” fled; carrying with him the vengeance and urge to tweak and complete his research. The only symbol/clue left behind is an Ouroboros – the tail devourer – a circular symbol of a snake that’s feeding on its own tail; thus forming a circle.

From this Ouroboros trail, a geneticist called Mia Bishop, her daughter, her long lost dad and a renegade CIA agent is drawn into the affluence of action and conspiracy. Thus, from the starting point at Portugal to the actions at Middle East, we’re brought into the roller-coaster ride packed chapters and page turning adventures.

Personal rating: 7 out of 10

Cons:
1) None that I can think of.

Pros:
1) Sufficient breather in between all the actions. Good action packed book.
2) Far fetching idea on immortality but it is a refreshing twist if we consider the possibility of looking at aging as a disease instead of accepting it as an unchangeable fact.