Unholy Business
A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery in the Holy Land
(Harper, Sept 2008)
Israel, with 30,000 archeological digs crammed with Bible- era artifacts, and fever-pitch religious extremists vying for proof of faith and history, is the setting for this gripping story from the eccentric world of Biblical archaeology and high-end relic collection. Surrounded by a cast of colorful characters—scholars, evangelicals, detectives, billionaires and dealers—a pair of scholar-cops stalk a wily millionaire who conducted what Israeli police called “the fraud of the century.†Two objects at the center of the fraud—the James Ossuary and the Joash Tablet—were only the tip of the iceberg. Museum shelves worldwide may still display fakes from his workshop. Unholy Business takes readers into the murky world of Holy Land relic dealing from the back alleys of Jerusalem’s Old City to New York’s Fifth Avenue, and reveals Biblical archaeology as it is pulled apart by religious believers on one side and scientists on the other.
Nina Burleigh is the author of four critically acclaimed nonfiction books. Her latest, Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery in the Holy Land (Collins 2008), tells the story of the unraveling of a Bible relic forgery scheme in Israel, and the intriguing world of biblical archaeology and relic collectors.
Previous books include Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt (Harper Collins, 2007), chronicles the first large-scale interaction between Western civilians and Islam in the modern era; The Stranger and the Statesman, (Morrow, 2003) about the mysterious life of 18th Century scientist James Smithson and his bequest to the nation; and A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Mary Meyer, (Bantam 1998), the true story of the unsolved murder of an American aristocrat in 1964, set in the bizarre and exclusive world of the wives of the Cold Warriors in Washington, D.C.Burleigh was born and educated in the Midwest, and began in journalism covering the Illinois Statehouse for the Associated Press. She has a Master's degree in English Literature from the University of Chicago, a Master's in Public Affairs Reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield, and a B.A. in English from MacMurray College.
To learn more please visit http://www.literati.net/Burleigh/BurleighBooks.htm
