Rat Scabies And The Holy Grail is a book written by Christopher Dawes and published in 2005 by Sceptre Books in the UK (ISBN 0-340-83211-8) and by Thunder’s Mouth Press in the US (ISBN 1-56025-678-8). It is a gonzo

Gonzo journalism

Gonzo journalism is a style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story via a first-person narrative. The word "gonzo" is believed to be first used in 1970 to describe an article by Hunter S. Thompson, who later popularized the style...

-esque quest to find the Holy Grail

Holy Grail

The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...

 by punk rock

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 legend Rat Scabies

Rat Scabies

Christopher Millar , better known by his stage name Rat Scabies, is a musician best known for his tenure as the drummer for The Damned....

, the one-time drummer of The Damned, with whom Dawes strikes up a friendship when the two become neighbours in the London suburb of Brentford

Brentford

Brentford is a suburban town in west London, England, and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located at the confluence of the River Thames and the River Brent, west-southwest of Charing Cross. Its former ceremonial county was Middlesex.-Toponymy:...

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The book, which has been described as "The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery-detective novel written by Dan Brown. It follows symbologist Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu as they investigate a murder in Paris's Louvre Museum and discover a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus having been married to...

gets the punk rock treatment" (The Bookseller), begins with Scabies introducing Dawes to the alleged mystery of Rennes-le-Château

Rennes-le-Château

Rennes-le-Château is a commune in the Aude department in Languedoc in southern France.This small French hilltop village is known internationally, and receives tens of thousands of visitors per year, for being at the center of various conspiracy theories, and for being the location of an alleged...

, a remote French village associated with all manner of esoteric conspiracy theories. Scabies and Dawes make several trips to Rennes-le-Château and also visit a number of other places said to be linked to the Holy Grail, including Rosslyn Chapel

Rosslyn Chapel

Rosslyn Chapel, properly named the Collegiate Chapel of St Matthew, was founded on a small hill above Roslin Glen as a Roman Catholic collegiate church in the mid-15th century...

 in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. The book is an often hilarious account of the pair’s adventures - they even manage to wangle themselves an invitation to a Knights Templar

Knights Templar

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...

 initiation ceremony - and its supporting cast of characters includes Henry Lincoln

Henry Lincoln

Henry Lincoln is an English author, television presenter, scriptwriter and former Supporting actor. He co-wrote three Doctor Who multi-part serials in the 1960s, and —starting in the 1970s— authored a series of books and inspired documentaries for the British television channel BBC2,...

 (the author of Holy Blood, Holy Grail) and a CIA operative, plus assorted treasure hunters, occultists, alien channelers, reincarnated medieval heretics, and more members of secret societies than you can shake a stick at. It also has a rather useful set of instructions for building your own Ark Of The Covenant

Ark of the Covenant

The Ark of the Covenant , also known as the Ark of the Testimony, is a chest described in Book of Exodus as solely containing the Tablets of Stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed...

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External links

• Rat Scabies And The Holy Grail