One gracious Amazon reviewer recently described Enoch’s Device as “like The Da Vinci Code but set in 997 AD.” I appreciate the comparison. Enoch’s Device is filled with religious mysteries that stretch deep into the past. 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.
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, however, truly is The Da Vinci Code in the Middle Ages. 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.
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. Inside the cave are two skeletons in shallow graves and a mysterious ring bearing the symbol of a labyrinth. In no time, the state police and a menacing lawyer become interested in the cave — and Alice too.
From there, a mystery unfolds about the skeletons’ identities and the ring’s purpose. 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. 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. 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.
Instead, about half of the novel flashes back to Carcassonne in the early thirteenth century, where seventeen-old Alaïs, the daughter of the viscount’s steward and wife to a young knight, finds herself caught up in a similar mystery about the labyrinth and the ring. Both point to her father, Bertrand Pelletier, who is a member of a secret medieval order founded to protect the Grail. And much like the parallel story set 800 years later, sinister forces inside the city will do anything to get their hands on the ring and three mysterious books tied to the Grail.
On top of this, Alaïs and her father are Cathars, a group of Gnostic Christians whom the Catholic Church deemed heretics and sought to eradicate. So much so that in 1208, Pope Innocent III sanctioned a ruthless crusade by French knights and nobles to invade Languedoc and purge it of Cathars. This horrific event, known as the Cathar Crusade, added a fascinating element to the story. I had heard of the Cathars but knew nothing about the Cathar Crusade until I read this book. Learning such things is one of the reasons I adore historical fiction.
Because the story deals with the Grail, there is a fantasy element in it, albeit a subtle one. In fact, historical fantasy is one of the book’s subgenres. But for the most part, it reads like a cross between historical fiction and a contemporary religious thriller.
I could have enjoyed the story immensely had it stayed in the thirteenth century. But two stories are going on here in a parallel fashion, and both of them ultimately lead back to the cave and its two skeletons. This is a clever plot device by the author, and it helps that a central tenet of Catharism is reincarnation. I’ll let you figure out the rest.
If the book had one blemish, it was the sheer number of viewpoint characters. While technically written from an omniscient viewpoint, chapters are essentially told from the perspective of at least fourteen different characters. Several times it was hard to keep track of them all, forcing me to go back and re-read chapters when a character had disappeared for a while. The constant flipping back and forth between the past and present made this even more challenging.
That said, I really enjoyed Labyrinth. I liked its take on the Grail. I loved the medieval storyline. And I was riveted by the religious mystery at the heart of it all. If you like historical fiction but also enjoy religious thrillers like The Da Vinci Code, Labyrinth may be the perfect book for you.
And if you want some more “magic” to go with those two elements, Enoch’s Device is always looking for new readers. 🙂