A Dan Landes Mystery

No one would suspect that Dan Landes, an ex-LA cop known for methodically building cases against criminals, was a former ayahuasca user. He thought he had buried his past when he retired to Panama 10 years ago. But a brutal murder forces him to return to the States. Now, to save his soul, he has to prevent another murder. But to do that, he may need to drink the psychedelic potion again.

In an unnamed and timeless Latin American country, the lives of six men and three police officers intertwine after a brutal murder in a gay bathhouse. Dan Landes, an expat LA cop, is recruited to hunt for a serial killer who preys on lonely men in the dark steam rooms. Dan is forced to use his friend Ricardo as bait for the killer. 

Dan Landes is “ex” everything: expatriate, ex-detective, and exhausted. He has returned to Panama from a year of recuperation in the United States, ready to resume a quiet life of hunting ayahuasca plants in the mountains. But evil is coming to Panama—or rather, through Panama—as a sinister team of murderers seeks to smuggle the world’s most lethal biological weapon into the United States through Central America. A dead body in a hotel room starts the investigation, and that dead soul returns from beyond the grave to force Dan to find the killers.