The Tenth Saint

In the pseudonymous Niko’s undistinguished thriller debut, archeologist Sarah Weston, who’s on a dig in Aksum, Ethiopia, doesn’t welcome the arrival of celebrity anthropologist Daniel Madigan, sent to assist by her antsy funders eager for results. When the pair find some human remains in a coffin bearing an ominous warning that a curse awaits anyone removing them, the Ethiopian ministry of culture’s director believes that the bones belong to the so-called 10th saint who spread Christianity in his country, “according to Coptic mysticism.” The discovery, of course, places Sarah and Daniel in danger, but even the threat of starvation while stranded in a remote canyon can’t stop the two from engaging in the sort of banter that’s more convincing on the big screen than on the page. The complications of the plot’s development could have been intriguing, but end up a muddle. And would Scotland Yard really send a rescue helicopter all the way to Ethiopia? (Mar.)