The Secret Scroll
by Andrew Sinclair
Sinclair-Stevenson, UKP 24.99, ISBN 0953739864
The cover promises that this book will reveal the links between the Holy Land and Venice and Scotland and North America and Rosslyn Chapel and the Dead Sea scrolls and the Masons and the Ark of the Covenant and… It will show a secret citadel and how the secret wisdom of the Middle East passed through the Templar Order into all guilds and crafts of Europe and America. It promises at the end a priceless secret scroll and a treasure map and of course also a rock tomb. It is also promises that the Holy Grail will be found at the end of the book in Scotland.
I have a confession to make: after several brave attempts to start again and again, I gave up reading after some 50 pages. Enough is enough. This book was written for people with a higher gift for endurance than mine. It reads as fluently as a telephone directory, but that has at least some alphabetical logic to it. Every phrase is crammed with names of persons, cities, religions and dark and Gnostic powers that are all linked in a way that would make Erich Von Däniken blush with envy.
If I were given a choice how to discover the Holy Grail: either saddle my horse and leave on a long quest, or chew through this book till the end, I know which I would opt for.
To be recommended to strong readers only.
Willem Betz
