Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail
Sceptre(March 2005)
www.madaboutbooks.com
Christopher Dawes lives in Brentford, in a quiet residential street. Rat Scabies -- the former drummer of prototypical punk band The Damned, and a man noted for setting his drums on fire while still playing them -- lives opposite.
When Rat decides he’s going to be your friend and then announces that he has firm plans to find -- with your help -- the Holy Grail, you don’t have much choice about it. This is Chris Dawes’s predicament, and RAT SCABIES AND THE HOLY GRAIL will be the result.
Rat and Chris’s investigations begin with the stories, some traceable and some mythical, surrounding the French village of Rennes-le-Chateau. This is not uncharted territory (viz. the bestseller THE HOLY BLOOD AND THE HOLY GRAIL) but it’s almost certainly the first time the facts have been fed through the refracting prism of a punk rock legend. RAT SCABIES AND THE HOLY GRAIL is a road trip, a rich historical yarn, and testimony to the odd nature of a great many friendships.
“RAT SCABIES AND THE HOLY GRAIL is solid proof that reading The Da Vinci Code need not induce brain necrosis. Even those who felt that their thinking tissues were starved of oxygen while they grappled with the publishing phenomenon of the year are likely to enjoy this ramble down France to the source of the conspiracy theory, Rennes-le-Château, in the diverting company of Scabies, former drummer with the legendary punk combo the Damned, possessor of a droll turn of phrase and, surprisingly, a Grail scholar from way back BB (Before Brown.) His Boswell is the music writer Christopher Dawes” – The Times
"A dizzy and highly enjoyable caper... Dawes has enough stories up his sleeve to raise the hair on your neck, but he's also a good historian, capable of giving a concise chronicle of the Cathars, walking you through the initiation ceremonies of the Knights Templars, or explaining why the Merovingians were known as the "sorcerer kings." It all makes for a rich broth as Dawes and Rat go where King Arthur, Adolph Hitler and Monty Python failed before them... A glittering horde of stories" -- Kirkus Review
Foreign Rights sold to the USA.
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