The Dead Sea Cipher

Dinah van der Lyn travels to the Holy Land and stumbles into an international intrigue tied to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

She's a young professional opera singer, and the daughter of a Pennsylvania clergyman who has an interest in Biblical archaeology. The tour she has signed up for hasn't even left Beirut yet when Dinah overhears a loud and violent argument in the hotel room next to hers. It ends in murder. Since the argument was in Arabic, Dinah has no idea what was said, but not everyone believes that.

It's 1970, so there are no cell phones or internet access, and trans-Atlantic phone calls are still a very expensive big deal. This changes the pace of events; simple things take longer, and everyone consequently feels more rushed, pressured, show more and confused. Is Jeff Smith really a professor of archaeology, or an impostor with an obviously fake name? Who is Cartwright? Is Mrs. Marks really the widow of an English clergyman, taking a memorial tour? For that matter, why should anyone believe Dinah is who she says she is?

As they visit major archaeological sites, Dinah chases rumors of new and potentially explosive Dead Sea Scrolls, and tries to figure out who is more dishonest and untrustworthy, Smith or Cartwright. Along the way, she flees armed pursuers through the streets of Jerusalem, and discovers the dubious joys of walking, crawling, and climbing through underground tunnels.

It's a light, entertaining mystery, great for summer reading or listening.

Recommended.

I borrowed this book from the library. show less

A stupid girl is forced by her father to go on a tour of the Holy Land. While there, she finds herself in the middle of an international espionage plot to suppress the discovery of more Dead Sea scrolls. All the while she is harassed by a colossal jackass of an archaeologist.

I received a stack of these Elizabeth Peters books from a friend of mine who knows I am a fan of Peters’ Vicky Bliss series. However, I am frustrated by the predictable, formulaic plots and annoying characters in these standalone books.

Dumb heroine with daddy issues…check
Exotic locale…check
A colossal jerk as love interest…check
International looting plot…check
Reader yawning in boredom…triple check!

Dinah Van Der Lyn is in her room in a Beirut hotel when she hears a cry for help from the next room. She tells the person she assumes to be the night attendant. They discover a man named "Hank" dead. This tale of espionage leads Dinah through Tyre, Sidon, Damascus, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and eventually to Qumran. Whom should Dinah trust--Cartwright or Smith? I expected a murder mystery rather than an espionage story and as such was a bit disappointed in the book. There is plenty of tension as the audience wonders if Dinah is trusting the right man. There's also questions about the identity of her traveling companions and their involvement.

When Dinah Van der Lyn travels to the Holy Land she finds herself thrust into the middle of an international plot involving the possible discovery of an ancient scroll that, if brought to light, would likely turn the Christian world on end. Danger and intrigue follow her through the Middle East, as do two handsome young men. Which, if either, should she trust?

I think I could describe this fairly accurately and simply as a dated Da Vinci Code light, (yes, it is possible to find a lighter work than Dan Brown's), set in the Middle East, with an ingenue protagonist.

I enjoyed the book well enough, but had to overlook its flaws...the dated feeling, (it was written in 1970), the overdone plot, and worst of all, an ending that I felt was weak, show more as if the author was writing her way out of a box.

The plot was rapidly paced, though, and I found the main idea and setting interesting. It kept me entertained. show less

Dinah travels to Jerusalem, because it was one of her father’s greatest hopes to travel there, but with him ending up in a wheel chair that hope is crushed. So being the marvelous daughter she is decides to let him vicariously live out his dream journey through a bunch of postcards and her travel journal. Everything goes along smoothly until one night in the hotel she’s staying at Dinah overhears a heated conversation in Arabic and a cry for help shouted in English. Even though she doesn’t know Arabic and so doesn’t know what had been going on in the next room, she rushes next door to provide assistance if needed. On the way she runs into a charming man who claims to be the night manager and grills her on what she over heard and show more then lets her return to her room. Then next day after returning from a tour she discovers that there had been a murder in the room next too her and no one knows who the man posing to be the night manager was. From there things start to spiral out of control with people spying on and chasing after Dinah, because they believe she may know more than she admits to.

Loved the setting of Jerusalem, but I couldn’t really get into the plot. Or for that matter the characters. Everything kind of seemed bland. And I couldn’t stop thinking that the hero in this story reminded me a little of Emerson from Peters’s Amelia Peabody series. The book was alright, but not the greatest of Peters works. show less

Again I enjoyed reading another book by Elizabeth Peters. The settings were a regular tour of historic places in the holy land. I liked the biblical history lessons interwoven with the romance and suspense. And, as always, I enjoyed the touches of Ms. Peters' good sense of humor.

It was the start of a grand adventure in a land of antiquity, a rare opportunity to visit biblical places shrouded in mystery. But in a Jerusalem hotel room a world away from everything she knows, Dinah van der Lyn hears angry voices through the wall, followed by a crash and a brief cry in English...for help! The brutal shattering of an evening's stillness becomes a prelude to terror. Without warning, Dinah has been unwittingly pulled into something unholy transpiring in a sacred city, and she must find answers hidden in the shadows. And she must trust an enigmatic stranger as she races through ancient, twisting streets teeming with secrets and peril, a man who may be leading her to safety...or to her doom.