Drawing in the Dust by Zoe Klein (2009)
This was another book that I just picked up off the shelf at the public Library.
Archaeologist Page Brookstone has spent her entire career unearthing ancient remains in the Middle East, most specifically at the battlegrounds of Megiddo. She is single, convinced that the Lou Gehrig's disease that affected her father will fall upon her as well. Her mentor, Norris Anderson, is the lead archaeologist at the Migiddo dig. He has a romantic interest in Page, which she does not return.
One day an Arab couple, Ibrahim and Aisha Barakat, go to Migiddo, hunt out Page and ask that she excavate the ground beneath their house. They are convinced that their house is haunted by a pair of spirits. The spirits, they claim, are lovers.
Against the advice of her mentor, Page decides to investigate. She finds that Ibrahim has already begin digging through the floor of his living room. Page is intrigued and ultimately finds a cistern beneath the Barakat house.
In the course of her excavation, she finds wonderful artifacts along with the bones of the prophet Jeremiah and a mysterious woman named Anatiya. Buried with the entwined skeletons is a collection of jars which contain the Anatiya scrolls. Page photographs the scrolls and asks her best friend, Jordanna, to translate them.
Page also meets Mortichai Masters, an Orthodox Jew whose mother is a Russian Jew and whose father is Irish Catholic. Mortichai is newly observant and engaged to marry the rabbi's daughter. Soon, however, the chemistry between Page and Mortichai is too much to ignore.
The book started off with a bang, but the momentum couldn't be sustained. It was an interesting book and filled with biblical knowledge. The end, however, couldn't live up to the first pages.
Read: October 16, 2009
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