The Virtues of Hell

Book excerpt: The anti-hero is John Butler, back from the war in the Far East branded a coward, a man for whom heroin had become a means of retreat from the horrors of battle. An addict now, he seeks help at a clinic and listens to the oft-repeated exhortation to find a consuming interest into which he can channel all his energies and aspirations. Butler concentrates on the one interest the war has left him - heroin. The combination of his past contacts as a chemistry student at University and his present contact as a drug pusher pave the way to an obsession. Provided with a secret laboratory by the head of the drug organization which employs him, he succeeds in perfecting a technique for producing the purest heroin ever refined. This however, is only the beginning of Butler's cure.