The Bible of Clay

International bestseller Navarro (The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud) wades back into the religious artifact suspense pond, but this time she's pretty much dead in the water with too many unpleasant characters, repetitive exposition, a plodding plot and flat unimaginative prose (perhaps the fault of the translator?). In Iraq, shortly before the current war, Iraqi archeologist Clara Tannenberg announces an incredible find: two cuneiform clay tablets that refer to another set of tablets that record the biblical patriarch Abraham's story of the creation of the earth. The twist is that this clay bible with Abraham's narrative was written a thousand years before the papyrus version we know today. This discovery, one character asserts, will \x93change history, with repercussions in religion and even politics.\x94 How this will happen and what the repercussions will be are never really explained, as a group of off-the-shelf evil Nazis vie with Clara's thuggish grandfather and a few other interested parties to find, seize, steal or sell the clay tablets. (Apr.)