The Constantine Codex

On the final day of her archeological dig along the Jordan River, Shannon Jennings Weber visits the Greek Orthodox Church of St. James the Just. Leafing carefully through an ancient manuscript by the early church historian Eusebius, she discovers some age-browned pages of another ancient document stuck in Eusebius' text. She whisks the pages off to America and back to Harvard, where her husband, Jon Weber, world-renowned author of a biography of Jesus and expert on antiquities, can use the tools of modern science to help translate the pages and authenticate their provenance. Through a whirlwind journey of mystery and intrigue, they eventually discover, with the help of a team of scholars, that the codex dates from the early fourth century; it's one of 50 copies of the Holy Scriptures commissioned by the Emperor Constantine and contains the original ending of the Gospel of Mark and a Second Acts giving details of Paul's death. The subject is intriguing, but Maier's book falls short, with superficial and unbelievable characters, thinly drawn plot elements, clumsy errors in historical research, and a lack of suspense. (June)