About the Book
Within the realm of the ancient
Maya kingdoms of Belize,
the key to the riddle of life is sought and found--
and it is death.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
With the Red Dragon's refusal to float another dime of American debt, the country teeters precariously at the rim of the fiscal equivalent of a black hole. The nation's single source for medical care, ARLNAT, struggles to confront its sacrosanct requirement: it must meet its mandated bottom line at all costs. Kabuki accounting and poorly disguised rationing are not being ignored by the new Congress.
No friend of socialized medicine, the chairman of the senate Special Committee on Aging learns that something may be wrong with ARLNAT's new anti-viral wonder drug, Sisacane.
An ally, NIH Director Phillip Quester, advises against any sort of regulatory formality in approaching the drug's Belizean manufacturer. In his Bethesda fiefdom, Quester has the perfect asset for the task: an intelligent, fetching and unintimidating young doctor. As she has in the past, Ginny Blaine is certain to put business first, even when risk abounds. Armed with an innocuous cover, she heads to Belize to sneak a peek under Xibalba Pharmaceuticals' tent.
But someone else is also hunting in Corozal, a Cayman Islander sniffing the money trails leading from ARLNAT to the private pockets of the top dogs of Xibalba Pharmaceuticals Limited. Brash conman Eddy Logan, crosses swords with Blaine as he works his mark, Xibalba's Wizard of Oz, or so he believes. But Logan badly needs Blaine's inside scoop--if he can persuade her to talk.
Ginny enlists Glen Cannon to help in assessing genetic materials she filches from a high tech lab inside the XPL plant--a lab that does not exist. Cannon, Stanford's star biophysicist, and Ginny's erstwhile paramour, unexpectedly shows up in Belize. Together they intend to learn the secret of Xibalba Station, an off-the-books XPL outpost nestling inside the jungles of western Belize.
As Xibalba moves to put an end to the two headed cur biting at its privates, Blaine's mission seems doomed to failure. Despite its inestimable importance, their discoveries may become just a few more of the lost secrets that pepper the colorful Maya landscape.
About the Author: Technology's pervasive and narcotic influence on society fascinated Keith Reiss well before he began researching the molecular physics of DNA at Duke University, where the seeds of his first novel, The Gemini Conspiracy, were sewn. In Gemini, biophysicist Glen Cannon and soon-to-be medical doctor Virginia Blaine become ensnarled within an epic convolution of secretive and dangerous interests that co-opt the development of a harmless scientific discovery, taking it in a deadly direction. In Reiss' second novel, River of Scorpions, Blaine, now a high level NIH researcher, is sent to the Belize on a secretive mission. There, she slips into the intriguing world of the Maya and discovers unlikely allies. Former protégé and paramour Glen Cannon unexpectedly appears as she probes the private affairs of people with much to lose, and little to gain by playing her game. Blaine's assignment slowly devolves into a struggle for existence-yet even her own life would be but a small price to pay. Both novels are rightly thrillers, but share little with today's genre of mindless shoot-'em-ups. In developing his characters, Reiss combines psychological depth together with a vivid and emotional sense of locale and culture. Subthemes explore the underlying causes of the insidious mischief his imperfect heroes must confront, adding intensity and color to the works. In Reiss' first two novels, mankind has entered a new age of innocence as it races to exploit the very fibers of life-with little more than a fleeting regard for the unintended consequences of tampering with nature's ultimate Pandora's Box. Dr. Reiss resides with his wife, Karen, in Wilmington, North Carolina. His two grown children, Cory and Victoria, are both attorneys.
