Lawrence Gardner's "Bloodline of the Holy Grail"

This book is rather simple to dispense with. All that Gardner (a professed "internationally known sovereign and chivalric genealogist" and royal historiographer) does, quite simply, is rely on the works of previous writers who offer ideas that are just as outside the scholarly pale as his own: Ahmed Osman, who asserts that Moses was actually Akhenaten; Baigent and Leigh, the Dead Sea Scroll conspiracy theorists; and a great deal of Barbara Thiering. Bloodline of the Holy Grail is little but another conspiracy-theory, mixed in with an host of bad arguments that we've addressed elsewhere.

With this consideration, it is no surprise that this book -- the premise of which is that the "Holy Grail" is actually a royal bloodline, descended from David through Jesus to certain people of the present day -- is endorsed by only one person, a certain "Prince Michael of Albany". Why? Because that's who the "bloodline" ends up with. And if you want to know if "Prince Michael" is himself a trustable source -- check this out.

In short, this book is better suited for a supermarket checkout than a serious researcher's library.

-JPH