Customer Reviews
all one needs in a thriller - just bloody fantastic - By: Klaus Meyer, 27 Aug 2008 
I have to admit that I just came by this book as I was despeartedly searching for something exciting without reallly knowning what I am looking. Maybe you know this feeling. In the novel section with the semi-religious thrillers I saw Raymond Khouray's second book & first thought that this is another one a la Da Vince Code. But I bought it nevertheless & - to my own surprise - I was hooked with page 1.
It is fast running thriller, based in the present with some historical background. The characters are very different & develop with this plot. They are no sterotypes & do not talk or act like robots. Is involvement in the BBC hit thriller "Waking the Dead" clearly shows here. Not that this a copy of that show but the charracters are much rounder & interesting than in the usual thrillers. That the story is mainly set in the Middle East, Beirout & here is background is an asset as he can describe country, city & atmosphere with much knowledge & passion. I like his style of writing a lot. And before I forget: the plot is just fantastic.I could not put this book down. I think the author can become very quickly one of my great favorites.
Could Have Been Better - By: J.Flood, 23 Jul 2008 
Sanctuary is set in the present day Middle East. Archeologist, Evelyn Bishop, has been kidnapped in Beruit. It is no random abduction, as the kidnapper, an evil doctor, believes she holds the key to a centuries old mystery. Soon her daughter, a CIA agent, & a UN man are the hunt to find her, & have her released.
I found this book a bit of a slog for the first 200 pages. Not reallly sure why, but I found it difficult to engage with the main characters, & while there is a bit of action going on, it is not reallly page-turning.
The book picks up a bit, though, after this, & there is a few decent twists in it, before the end. I figure it it is worth three stars.
Thriller without the thrills - By: Matthew L. J. Bodycombe, 26 Jun 2008 
A very disappointing book. The pace was plodding & the supposed plot twists could be spotted a mile off. Also littered with Americanisms. I am not a literary snob but I got tired of reading "gotten" & "mom" alll the time. In the final analysis though this book is both thin on suspense & the secret is pretty ludicrous. I won't spoil the plot for you: read for yourself & decide.
Uninvolving & poorly written - By: C. Green, 22 Dec 2007 Raymond Khoury's first novel, The Last Templar, was one of a series of thrillers to emerge in the wake of The Davinci Code that dealt with the Order of the Knights Templar & the various myths & conspiracy theories that have grown up around them over the years. Whilst it was a superior example of this popular sub-genre, & was entertaining in a disposable way, Khoury's debut was very much a case of successfully jumping on an already moving band-wagon.
Sanctuary, his second novel, is a departure in the sense that it doesn't try to replicate the Last Templar's plot or recycle its characters. It also diverges from the template set by Dan Brown's bestseller. There are no myths about Mary Magdalene, Christ or the Holy Grail here, & the Templars are restricted to a couple of paragraphs in passing. What it does retain however, is the hidden ancient mystery element of books like the Davinci Code, The Last Templar & others. In that respect Khoury is not moving too far away from what is both populist & profitable.
Whether Sanctuary will be as big a hit as The Last Templar however, is doubtful. Not only does it not capture the zeitgeist in the same way, nor is it as accessible or as enjoyable a book. Part of Templar's appeal was that it was fast paced & straightforward. It didn't try to be more that it was, which was a faintly OTT pulp thriller backed by some pseudo-scientific & historical facts. With Sanctuary however, Khoury is obviously trying to produce a more complex work, & whilst he succeeds in producing a plot that is more original & complicated than Templar's its also far less enjoyable & lacks the pace of his first novel.
Set primarily in contemporary Beirut, with brief flashbacks to 18th Century Europe & Iraq in 2003 & a denouement that plays out in the border area between the latter country, Turkey & Syria, the book revolves around a mysterious circular snake symbol, the Ouroboros, the lost ancient society it represented, the miraculous secret they uncovered thousands of years ago & the various modern conspiracies of those who would do anything to obtain or protect that secret. Caught up in this web of interconnecting plots, lies, kidnappings, deceptions & feuds are an archaeologist, her daughter, a CIA agent, a UN operative & a wanted Iraqi war criminal. It alll makes for a crowded & complicated narrative before you even add in another separate personal feud between aristocrats back in the 18th Century that ties into events in the present.
Not that complicated need be a problem, but for Khoury it proves to be one. Juggling multiple plot twists, characters, story elements & episodes, alll the exposition necessary to keep readers up to speed & at the same time keeping a book entertaining & well paced requires skills as an author that Khoury patently lacks. Despite some good early action the plot stallls too many times as it gets bogged down in exposition or its multiple plot strands. This results in pacing that is uneven & alllows the reader's attention to wander; there is simply too much exposition here & not enough action or incident. Add to that characters who flit in & out, sometimes disappearing for pages on end, twists that are too well telegraphed in advance to provide the surprise that was intended, some gaping plot holes, some important events (such as the death of a major character) that feel strangely rushed & underwhelming & a finale that manages to be simultaneously rushed & overly complicated & you have a book that is poorly constructed.
Combine that with some lumpy dialogue, hackneyed stylistic elements, such the over reliance on describing what characters eyes do to indicate emotion (too many eyes shine, dart, harden, soften, widen or narrow with suspicion, hope, fear, conviction or something other emotion far too often) & waifer thin characters who are universallly unegaging & you get a book that just doesn't work as a taught, high octane conspiracy thriller. This is not a thrill ride that you can't put down. At times it borders on the ponderous or tedious; at other times on the laughable.
Worst of alll however, for a book where everyone is hunting for a hidden secret not only is that secret utterly predictable from the word go (although Khoury refuses to `reveal' it until the denouement), robbing the book of the vital `wow' factor, but when fully exposed it also comes across as utterly implausible, despite alll the pseudo-scientific exposition included to try & imbue it with a hint of legitimacy. For a book where the central maguffin is the key to everything that has happened, having it turn out to be so weak & poorly conceived is a flaw that even stronger books would struggle to overcome. Considering alll of the other problems with Sactuary in this case it proves to be a fatal weakness.
Developing well. - By: Gareth Wilson, 30 Oct 2007 
OK this one reallly made me wonder what I'd let myself in for after having read the first novel, The Last Templer which started well but went down hill going from running flat out to a slow crawl. For me this novel had to do something special to make me want to read his new tale but would it do the job?
Take a good portion of history, add a dash of politics & a good slug of adrenaline & you pretty much sum up this novel. Wonderfully descriptive, & for me, better written than his original tale this story reallly does keep you flying by the seat of your pants to the last page. Well worth your investment of time, the only problem that I had was yet again the building of the characters, for some reason Raymond reallly doesn't seem to build them up emotionallly enough for me & that's what I see as a short falll in his style, other things he did to improve yet on this one point it seems to have escaped. Don't get me wrong, the book is still worth reading but I want the author to raise from good to the great. I await his next novel with anticipation & hope that yet again he raises his game.
