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“Part science, part theology, part suspense” is how the publisher describes Return to Sodom and Gomorrah: Bible Stories from Archeologists by Charles Pellegrino (Avon Books, New York, $12.50, ISBN 0 380 72633 5). It’s an entertaining collection of accounts of how archaeologists working in the deserts and valleys of the Middle East have come up with evidence that fits, says Pellegrino, neatly with many of the famous Biblical stories. But literary evidence from the Bible allows many interpretations. Using the same phrase -“slimepits” to mean bitumen pits – geologists recently suggested ancient Sodom lies near the Dead Sea. Pellegrino prefers in or near Iraq.