Review Rating
With the October 2004 review, we began rating the books on the basis of one to four trowels;
one trowel= don’t bother, to four trowels= run right out to your local book store and buy the hard cover!
Golden Oldies - reviewing previously unreviewed books by previously reviewed “greatest hits” authors!
As we approach nearly twenty-five years of the MVAC reviews of archaeological fiction, I thought it would be fun to re-visit six of the authors whose works have been reviewed in the past. Three of these authors have sadly passed away since I first reviewed them (Margot Arnold, Lynn Hamilton, and Elizabeth Peters); two have “retired” their archaeologist protagonists, Gideon Oliver (Aaron Elkins), and Emma Fielding (Dana Cameron); and one, (Kate Ellis) continues to put DI Wesley Peterson and his friend, archaeologist Neil Watson, in harm’s way as solve contemporary crimes that have their roots in the distant past. While these authors have been reviewed previously, these books have not.
Bone Box by Jay Amberg
Reviewed on: June 1, 2026
Amika Press: Northfield, IL
2015 (PB)
Joe Travers knows nothing about archaeology, but as a member of the Glavine Foundation board of directors and a college friend of Bill Glavine, Jr., he is sent to Istanbul, Turkey, to visit archaeological sites funded by the foundation. From the outset, Travers finds himself out of his depths. He meets with Sophia Altay, supervisor of the dig at the Basilica of St. John, built by Emperor Justinian I in the 6th Century, and believed to be the burial site of the “beloved” Apostle, in Ephesus. She believes he was sent to fire her and to close the site, but he barely manages to convince her that he has come with no pre-conceived ideas nor any hidden agenda. Travers learns of the complex and convoluted relationships that govern the excavations.
Sophia explains that the St. John’s site, which she is supervising, is under the oversight of the Aegean Association and its founder and director, Leopold Kirchburg, who is intent upon closing the project and firing Sophia –ostensibly because she and her crew are excavating outside the parameters of the project without his permission. But he needs Joe Travers’ approval because it is the Glavine Foundation that is funding the St. John’s project and paying Sophia’s salary. She discloses to Joe that she is investigating a potentially earthshaking discovery but on her own time and at her own expense. The discovery, she discloses, is an ossuary, or bone box, with an inscription reading, “Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.” Within the ossuary are the remains of a crucified male—with the femurs broken—and two scrolls, one ostensibly relating the last days of Jesus Christ, and the other relating the final testament of St. John many years after the crucifixion. The artifacts could shake the very foundations of the world’s major religions. The bones and the scrolls have disappeared—taken ostensibly for safe keeping by Abrahim, the spiritually tormented young man who had been a member of Sophia’s excavation crew. And if they can recover the artifacts, what then should be done with them?
What follows is a desperate quest through the wilderness of Cappadocia in central Turkey as a variety of hostile forces seek possession of these incredible artifacts. Violence stalks Joe and Sophia as they struggle with the growing realization that making the discovery known to the wider world could unleash an epidemic of violence on mankind as radical elements of all the world’s great religions could use the scrolls’ message in an effort to destroy opposing theologies. Heroic decisions must be made by decidedly unheroic human beings.
Jay Amberg has written a thought provoking and challenging thriller. His characters are carefully crafted, and their actions are believable as they face daunting situations and incessant dangers. Complementing the imaginative plot of the novel, Mr. Amberg has described the ambiance and flavor of modern-day Turkey in a very realistic fashion. Four trowels for Bone Box.
