Overview
The time is December 1999. Millennial fever holds the world in its grip - stirring ancient and terrible fears that the apocalypse is at hand. In the Sinai Desert, archaeologist Catherine Alexander has just unearthed a cache of six ancient papyrus scrolls that point to the millennium's most transforming secret. Discovered inside what may be the legendary Well of Miriam, a site named after the ancient prophetess who was the sister of Moses, the scrolls reveal a hidden history of the world and its religions - a series of shattering revelations that governments will do anything to suppress, and that an enigmatic billionaire named Miles Havers will do anything to possess. But there is more: a seventh scroll that contains a secret of almost unimaginable power. It is a secret that may cost Catherine her life as she dodges government agents, Vatican operatives, and cyberspace perils in her race to translate the scrolls and release their powers to the world. Aided by two very different and compelling men, Dr. Julius Voss and Father Michael Garibaldi, Catherine finds herself caught up in the adventure of a lifetime and a struggle that she must win.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
As the millennium approaches in the Sinai desert, an archeologist unearths six ancient scrolls. (Nov.)Library Journal
Here is yet another winner by Woods (e.g., Virgins of Paradise, LJ 5/1/93), who also writes as Kathryn Harvey. "Millennium madness meets Internet mania" describes this exciting novel in a nutshell. In December 1999, archaeologist Catherine Alexander unearths clues to scrolls that could rock the foundations of Christianity, especially the Catholic Church. Her quest for the truth takes her globe-hopping, with an unlikely combination of villains in hot pursuit. There is action without excessive violence, love without unnecessary vulgarity, intriguing themes of women's roles in early Christianity, and interesting views on the replication of religious messages/messengers. Additionally, Wood successfully exploits the current rage for the Internet, which here both helps Alexander and hurts her by allowing the villains to track her. To Wood's credit, she handles a priest as a love interest in a very skillful manner (although some readers may still be offended). A fun, exciting novel timed for super summer reading in public libraries.-Rebecca Sturm Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib, Highland HeightsKirkus Reviews
An entertaining suspense thriller, set during the last days of 1999 and featuring the discovery of ancient, explosive religious revelations in a series of scrolls.Wood has dealt previously with the spiritual odysseys of feisty females (The Dreaming, 1991, etc.), as well as with archaeological adventures. But this is also a tale of a pair on the run, and their adventures carry the story beyond its preachments, however worthy. Catherine Alexander, an enterprising archaeologist with feminist scores to settle—principally with the Catholic Church—finds in her Sinai dig six ancient papyrus scrolls containing not only the name of Jesus but also pointing to the possibility of women priests in the early church. To protect her finds from a greedy establishment, Catherine decides to smuggle them out of the country and enlists the help of her old friend Daniel, another archaeologist. To her dismay and puzzlement, it is a handsome young priest, Fr. Michael Garibaldi, who in turn comes to the pair's aid as a number of enemies close in. Among the pursuers eager for the scrolls: mega-mouth Miles Havers, the ultimate collector, and his lethal hirelings; the Catholic Church; the Egyptian government; and then, following Daniel's death, the state police of California. There will be two murders, pursuits and escapes, and deadly games via cyberspace as Havers's brilliant computer expert gleefully surfs to find Catherine and the priest. Between alarms (and a bit of forbidden passion) and mutual confessions, Catherine translates the six scrolls—the account of a first-century woman who had travelled the known world searching for "the Righteous One." Visits to a quiet cloister (and its secrets) in Vermont and a Vatican necropolis lead to the discovery of a revelatory Seventh Scroll.
The religious message here—mainstream unitarian with a mere whiff of New Age—is benign and appealing, but the pace is set by that "pair of daring adventurers running through cyberspace . . . defying death, going for the prize." Fox and hounds with uplift.