Outside Eden

July 1, 2013
Jones’s appealing fourth Harper Jennings mystery (after 2012’s Winter Break) opens in a teeming Jerusalem market place where a determined killer is stalking his prey, a benighted American tourist. Meanwhile, Harper, a feisty archeologist and traumatized Iraq war veteran, thinks she, husband Hank, and baby daughter will have a relaxing stay as they attend an international symposium in Jerusalem. When Harper and her Israeli nanny find the body of a Muslim in a Christian area, they inadvertently discover that both the Muslim and the earlier American victim were murdered in exactly the same manner. Hoping to escape the tension of being part of a police investigation, Harper, her baby, and the surprisingly assertive nanny leave Jerusalem with Hank’s blessing and join an archeological dig at Tel Megiddo. Unsettling events near the site raise the ante, but the story spins out of control as it approaches the frenzied and chaotic conclusion. Agent: Rebecca Strauss, McIntosh & Otis.

August 15, 2013
An archaeologist runs afoul of a millennialist cult on a dig in northern Israel. Iraq War veteran Harper Jennings (Winter Break, 2013, etc.) has plenty on her mind. In Jerusalem while her geologist husband, Hank, attends an international symposium on water rights, Harper spends her days trying to entertain her toddler, Chloe. But the desert landscape brings flashbacks of wartime trauma. These only increase when Harper witnesses the stabbing of a man in the shuk of the Old City. Hoping that a change of scene will help, she volunteers for a dig outside of Tel Megiddo. But Harper is shaken, first by Chloe's quick abandonment of her English vocabulary in favor of Hebrew and later, by the constant and nerve-racking vigilance of Hagit, Chloe's nanny, against plots hatched by the Evil Eye. It doesn't help that all the other volunteers on the dig are members of a Christian sect led by charismatic pastor Ramsey Travis. Nor does it set Harper's mind at ease when her digging partner, Lynne, confides that Travis has the extraordinary power to decode secret messages in the Bible and that he's discovered that Tel Megiddo is actually a corruption of the word Armageddon, which will take place at that site on the ninth day of the Hebrew month Av, only five days away. As Travis' flock prepares for the End of Days, Harper tries to alert the Israeli authorities, but they ignore her concerns. So she does what any red-blooded female Iraq War veteran would do, launching an assault against the Evil Eye far beyond anything Hagit can imagine. Right up to the point that Harper turns GI Jane, Jones' fourth Jennings saga maintains a nice balance among mystery, travel writing and domestic drama.

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August 1, 2013

Wherever she goes, Iraq War vet and archaeologist Dr. Harper Jennings finds trouble. No matter that she's in a new environment--Israel, where her geologist husband is scheduled to take part in an international symposium--and that she's the mother of a toddler, with a fierce Israeli babysitter in tow. She has already stumbled onto two murder scenes in Jerusalem, so when an opportunity arises to join an archeological outing, it sounds like a perfect way to keep herself, her daughter, and the babysitter out of danger. But now Jennings is smack in the middle of a dig that includes a group of Christian zealots who are counting down the days as they prepare for the apocalypse. Jennings must stop them from carrying out their violent plans. Meanwhile, things aren't going so well back in Jerusalem either. VERDICT Nonstop action and abundant foreshadowing of impending danger must mean Jones's intrepid professor is out there again. There's nothing cozy about her archaeologist sleuth, who returns in her fourth series thriller (after Winter Break). Great escape reading.

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