Earthly Remains

In this audacious, thought-provoking novel, reporter Paul Davoren, covering the Israeli-Arab conflict in 1948, lands squarely in the middle of an even bigger story. Bedouins have uncovered ancient scrolls in a cave near the Dead Sea; deciphering the script, greedy art collector John May and Sara Garner, a Brooklyn-born archeologist whom Paul loves, find in a desert crypt the crudely preserved body of a crucified man, embalmed with smelling salts and identified in the scrolls as the ``Teacher of Righteousness.'' The evidence suggests that these are the mortal remains of Jesus the Nazarene, and that a headless skeleton also exhumed is that of John the Baptist. Their incredible find, transported secretly to a Chicago institute for further study, challenges the foundations of Christianity and implies that Jesus (if the body is indeed his) had close ties to the Essenes, a mystical pre-Christian sect. The Vatican tries to suppress news of the dig, leading to a suspenseful finale. Hernon ( A Terrible Thunder ) has crafted a gripping, impressively researched tale, however farfetched its premise at first appears. (Nov.)