Strata: Stolen Stele

In one life, he is John Sandford, best-selling author of more than 23 novels in his popular Prey series, as well as 16 other books of mostly mystery adventures. When a new book comes out, his publisher takes out a full-page color ad featuring Sandford and the book in the New York Times. And oh, by the way, he also won a Pulitzer Prize for some journalism articles. His most recent book, Storm Front, came out in October (with the customary New York Times ad). More about that later.

In another life, he is John Camp. That’s his real name. In 1996 he visited Israel and told his guide that he would like to meet an archaeologist. The guide knew Amihai Mazar, a leading Israeli archaeologist, so he took Camp to Mazar’s office at Hebrew University. Camp told Mazar that he had been reading an interesting book about archaeology in Israel and would like to learn more. “Who was the book by?” Mazar asked. “By someone named Amihai Mazar,” was the reply. That was the beginning of their friendship.