"What a wonderful story! Author Sarah Wisseman takes us on a journey with archaeologist Lisa Donahue, as she arrives in Jerusalem to arrange for artifacts to be loaned to her home museum in Philadelphia. Her mission becomes complicated almost immediately by the discovery of a small piece of papyrus stuck to the inside of one of the jars she is examining. Meeting up with old friend and ex-lover Greg Manzur and his friends Salima and Farid, they decipher some of the ancient text. It is possible that the papyrus is part of the Deborah Codex – books written by one of the twelve female apostles of Jesus. Where the rest of the documents are is anyone’s guess.

Other people are also interested in the rest of the codex. Some want to sell it to the highest bidder. But there is another group at work, people who would destroy the codex, to keep its supposedly heretic teachings from ever seeing the light of day. It’s a race against time and their opponents. Lisa and her friends take their very lives in their hands – for knowledge and to make sure the Dead Sea Codex is found and kept safe.

I enjoyed this book immensely. Lisa Donahue is a wonderful character, three dimensional – her job, her duty and her left-over feelings for Greg make her jump off the page. It was obvious to me, even before reading her biography, that the author had been to Israel. Her descriptions of the land, Jerusalem and its surrounding landmarks and the people transported me to the Middle East. Intrigue, romance, and the quick pace of this novel made it easy to read and hard to stop... (more).

Lighthouse Book Reviews, Feburary 2006.

"This book opens with a really excellent description of a part of Old Jerusalem, truly proof that the writer has lived in Israel. The descriptions of the shouk, the smells of the street vendors' foods, the descriptions of the people and places are all unique to Israel. This book is filled with all that a book about life in the Middle East can afford, if you are seeking that life, and some of life on the dangerous side. It is a good story, but in some areas it is predictable too. It is a typical book of suspense, history, intrigue, the criminal side of the antiquities,etc.

This book is written from the view of the main character, archaeologist and museum curator Lisa Donahue, but also from the views of other characters, her ex-boyfriend Gregory Manzur, a Jordanian epigrapher, a Lebanese museum curator, an Arab-Israeli registrar, and an American conservator. We see a cross-cut of the population of Israel.

We see, hear and feel all that is going through these people as they are pulled deeper and deeper into a mystery and all the suspense within it. In the end we learn that a small piece of papyrus Lisa found in an urn earlier in the book is part of a codex that some Christian fanatics are trying to find to keep from becoming known to the rest of the world. That codex gives details about the teachings of Jesus's female disciples..."

--March 2006 review by Michael Edelson  

"Sarah Wisseman’s second entry in the Lisa Donahue series is entertaining and satisfying. It is a slim volume (only 150 pages in length) and this is a strength. Her prose is spare but evocative and one gains an insight into the sights and smells and atmosphere of Israel, from the souks of the Old City to the incredible desolation of the Dead Sea area. The characters are credible and the adventure and the danger—especially in the environment of the Dead Sea caves—are palpable. I look forward to more of Lisa’s archaeological adventures—as either a care-free ABD or as a world-weary widow and single parent." 

-- Bill Grescens, Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center at University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse.

"...The Dead Sea Codex is full of mystery, intrigue, and the potential questioning of everything we’ve believed true of Christianity and its origins. This smart mystery allows the reader to travel to Israel and become an archaeologist, and adventurer, and treasure hunter for just a little while."

--Tami Brady