The Gold of Exodus

February 2, 1998
The search for the "real" site of Mt. Sinai, where Moses was said to have received the Ten Commandments, is the basis for this briskly paced and often comic nonfiction thriller from Blum (Gangland). The quest mixes the religious with the mercenary: the Bible says that before leaving the mountain, the Israelites buried the gold they had brought with them out of Egypt. An unlikely pair of American amateur treasure hunters--Larry Williams, an eccentric millionaire, and Bob Cornuke, a former SWAT-team leader from California--researched the subject and concluded that Mt. Sinai was not on the Sinai peninsula, as commonly believed, but was the mountain Jabal al Lawz in southwestern Saudi Arabia. The Saudis do not allow tourists into the country, but in 1988 Williams and Cornuke sneaked in on a forged visa. What they didn't know, and what adds a level of geopolitical irony to Blum's story, was that the Saudis had begun constructing a top-secret military installation on the mountain, and that Israeli intelligence was eager to learn about it. The result is a rather madcap adventure, as the two hapless, middle-aged Indiana Joneses deal with shady Arabs and Israeli spies in London, negotiate with bedouins for information and sneak past the Saudi army in the middle of the night, using only the Old Testament as a guidebook. While Blum's latest never quite builds to its promised climax, Williams and Cornuke's trip to the summit of what may or may not be one of the holiest mountains in the world is always wryly entertaining. 100,000 first printing; first serial to Vanity Fair; film rights to Castle Rock.

November 15, 1997
As recounted by best-selling journalist Blum, two men using the Old Testament as a guide set out to find the spot where God supposedy talked to Moses--and the gold the Hebrews brought with them from Egypt.

November 15, 1997
Best-selling author Blum chronicles a real-life Indiana Jones tale. Larry Williams, a rich treasure hunter, and his partner, ex-cop Bob Cornuke, were out to locate the real Mt. Sinai, the biblical site of Moses' receipt of the Ten Commandments after the flight of the Jews from Egyptian enslavement. The exact position of Mt. Sinai has been a puzzle for ages; these two explorers, with Bible in hand, found it, not in Egypt, where common speculation locates it, but in Saudi Arabia, a peak known in the modern era as Jabal al Lawz. There is much more to this story than two guys simply marching up to a mountain and proclaiming it Mt. Sinai. It seems that back in the late 1970s, the Saudi king decided that a mega-defense system was necessary to protect the integrity of his kingdom, and Jabal al Lawz became part of a top-secret military installation. So the real story here is Williams and Cornuke not only finding what they insist is the real Mt. Sinai but also getting onto and off of the mountain at the mercy of "both" Israeli and Saudi secret agents. Blum's book, which reads like an excellent spy thriller, is not only surefire adventure reading but also thought-provoking. ((Reviewed November 15, 1997))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)