It seems the country is gripped with Dan Brown fever. I remember my last few years working in a bookshop, watching The Da Vinci Code fly off the shelves, lamenting every copy of the ill-written, trashy phenomenon. I detest the term “summer reading”. So, while you’re lying on that sandy shore, why not dig into something slightly more meaty?

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Brown’s novel’s predecessor by some thirty years, is filled with the kind of detail and evidence which he refuses us. I was amazed to find that, despite its hugely controversial reputation, this was not just the report of some investigation, but a gripping tale, beginning in nineteenth century France, with a parish priest’s startling discoveries in his church, and sweeping back through the ages to the mysterious Templars and their relation to that elusive treasure, the Holy Grail.

We are privy to the author’s thought patterns in a way which a fictionalisation of this issue could never allow. I was intrigued to read that even now, when the legend of the Holy Grail appears to have assumed a mythical, antiquated status, individuals still exist with close links to the Templars and some potentially huge religious secret, and are, perhaps, still concealing it.

This is a surprisingly easy read, and if you want something a little more worthwhile to get into this summer, I highly recommend it.

£7.99
Delacorte Press

Related Posts

• On the Up
• The Da Vinci Code
• My secret life as a Viking
• Do too many games spoil the sport?
• York Professor exposes true bonfire night history of violence, mob-rule and anarchy