Labyrinth

By Kate Mosse. Another crusader-era mystery. No reviewer has been able to resist comparing it to the Da Vinci code, with good reason. There's a secret society that's trying to retrieve three books that hold the secret of life, written in heiroglyphics. The modern mystery is ehh, but the half of the book that takes place during the Catholic invasion of the Cathar region (southwest France) in the early 13th century. There's a couple of plucky heroines (Alais, and her modern counterpart, Alice), great medieval atmosphere, some painless history lessons about the church of the time, and a mostly swiftly moving story. But the books a little long. There may have been a superfluous love story or bomb setting.