Had the novel stayed in the twenty-first century, you’d have a modern religious thriller much like The Da Vinci Code, and a worthy one too. It’s quickly revealed that members of a secret society are searching for the book and the ring, and they’ll kill to obtain them.

Adding to the puzzle is a labyrinth carving in the cave identical to that on the ring and an empty bag just big enough to hold a book. In no time, the state police and a menacing lawyer become interested in the cave - and Alice too.įrom there, a mystery unfolds about the skeletons’ identities and the ring’s purpose. Inside the cave are two skeletons in shallow graves and a mysterious ring bearing the symbol of a labyrinth.

Much of the story takes place in 2005, when Alice, a young British professor, discovers a hidden cave during an archeological dig near Carcassonne in Languedoc, France. Like Dan Brown’s famous thriller, Labyrinth concerns a quest for the Holy Grail, and once again, the Grail is something very different than the cup of Christ depicted in movies like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the legends of King Arthur. Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, however, truly is The Da Vinci Code in the Middle Ages. But there is also a fantasy element to the book, along with an epic scope designed to make it a historical version of the epic fantasies I grew up with. Enoch’s Device is filled with religious mysteries that stretch deep into the past.

One gracious Amazon reviewer recently described Enoch’s Device as “like The Da Vinci Code but set in 997 AD.” I appreciate the comparison.

Labyrinth by kate mosse