Ian Jackson was born in Keighly in 1935 and has geography degrees from London and McGill Universities. He was one of four wintering members of the Canadian International Geophysical Year expedition to northern Ellesmere Island in 1957-8 and his account of that year, Does Anyone Read Lake Hazen?, was published by the Canadian Circumpolar Institute Press in 2002. He taught at the London School of Economics from 1959 to 1969, and then occupied a series of environmental and policy planning positions in the Canadian Government in Ottawa. From 1978 to 1981 he was a member of the United Nations Secretariat in Geneva and New York and then Executive Director of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society at its head-quarters in New Haven, Connecticut. He has been a member of The Hakluyt Society since the 1960s, and has served on its Council. He is an Associate Fellow of Timothy Dwight College, Yale University, and his volume in 2000 for the Champlain Society (Toronto) entitled Letters from the 49th Parallel, 1857-1873 was based on material in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale. Volume I of the Scoresby journals appeared in 2003, Volume II in 2008.
An engrossing mystery concerning the appearance of the skeleton of a crucified man in Jerusalem. Despite a burden of exposition, Read (A Season in the West, 1989, etc. etc.) adroitly works out his premises and explores their theological implications. Andrew Nash, a Simonite monk, is a young archaeologist. His mentor, John Lambert, a professor of biblical archaeology, is found dead, possibly a suicide. Shortly thereafter, Andrew and his colleagues come upon a crucified skeleton, supposedly Christ's, and posit that Lambert killed himself when his faith was destroyed. The protagonists are close-knit: Michael Dagan is the Israel archaeologist who originally finds the skeleton; Anna, Michael's daughter, helps Andrew look for evidence, and eventually becomes the monk's lover; and Henry, Andrew's brother, is also Anna's lover (before she leaves him for Andrew). Once the soap opera is in place, Read skillfully turns the novel into a religious and political mystery. Was Lambert murdered? Is the skeleton a hoax? Was it planted by the Jews, or by liberal theologians, or by the KGB, or - possibly - by the Romans, who wanted to promote Christianity because it was not of this world ? Despite Some long-winded erudite conversations, Read strings the plot along and keeps up the suspense until we discover the perpetrator of the hoax: a fanatic Israeli colonel who wants both to short-circuit 20 centuries of Christian-tainted history and to assure continued support for Israel. Michael Dagan, forced to face his own guilt, destroys the skeleton; Henry Nash, an atheist, finds faith; and Andrew decides to leave the order and marry Anna, his true love. Read's 11th novel - an enthralling read - touches upon a number of current theological controversies without losing its tightly plotted tension. (Kirkus Reviews)