THE COPPER SCROLL

In Teeguarden’s novel, an American graduate student goes on an archeological adventure involving the Knights Templar, the Mossad, and the Islamic State group.

Earnest Joshua “Masa” Bennett grows up digging in his grandparents’ backyard with his grandfather and dreams of becoming an archeologist. Now, the 20-something is hitting the books hard at the University of Arkansas and drawing connections that others missed, leading to the whereabouts of a lost treasure in the valley of Achor, near Jericho. Soon, young Joshua, along with teaching assistant Noa Lev and Mossad operatives Tal Ben-Ari and Avi Katz are scouring the Middle East for the lost treasure they seek. It’s a dangerous business involving agents of three of the world’s most influential religions—and they all want to take possession of Joshua’s obsession for their own reasons. As a Christian action thriller, a lot of the drama that Teeguarden offers will appeal most to readers who have extensive familiarity with the Bible; such knowledge makes passages such as this one feel more intense: “Noa traced the Jordan’s curve on the map, her finger steady. ‘The ‘shepherd’s crook’ ties Elijah’s mantle to John, maybe Jesus’ lost sheep parables—a thread from Melachim to the Gospels.” Teeguarden’s characters, and their motivations, sometimes feel less like real people than they do chess pieces, moved around according to the dictates of the plot. This aspect, though, is just as often offset by the author’s consistently neat and propulsive narrative, which recall some of Indiana Jones’ adventures as Joshua and his team draw closer to unlocking the secret of the scroll, which may involve a biblical figure: “His mind raced,” Teeguarden writes of Joshua early on. “The ‘valley of Achor’ was near Jericho, and the Copper Scroll’s ‘pillar’ could be a landmark—a rock formation, a stalagmite, something tangible.” Overall, the foundations for solid worldbuilding are put into place, and some readers are sure to want to know what lies ahead.

A sometimes-dense but fast-moving tale of archeology and adventure.