Was the Holy Grail in the Highlands?

A HIGHLAND author is stepping into "Da Vinci Code" territory with his own theory on the hiding place of the Holy Grail — and comes up with a solution much closer to home.

Following his first novel, "The Stuart Agenda", Wick-born writer Alan Calder returns to his Caithness roots in his second book, "The Glorious Twelfth", published as an ebook by Museitup.

In worldwide hit "The Da Vinci Code", American novelist Dan Brown speculates that the Holy Grail lies buried in the filled in crypt of Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh.

However, Calder, who divides his time between homes in Holmfirth in Yorkshire and Wick, has an alternative theory and points out that by the time Rosslyn Chapel was built by the powerful Sinclair family in the first half of the 15th century, the clan was well established in Caithness where it still holds the Earldom.

"Caithness, then remote and inaccessible, would have provided a much better hiding place for the Grail than Rosslyn, especially after the Sinclairs began to build a series of heavily fortified castles round the Caithness coast," he said.

"So did Dan Brown have the right family but the wrong hiding place?"

"The Glorious Twelfth" opens as archaeologist Ben Harris finds a Celtic stone and evidence of a medieval shipwreck on the Noster estate of Sir Ranald Sinclair. Careless talk by Ben at a conference in Paris sparks off a robbery at Sir Ranald’s mausoleum, uncovering a treasure that has been hidden for centuries, and beginning an international treasure hunt with Ben racing to thwart a desperate and fanatical enemy.

The book can be downloaded to e-readers from Amazon or the publisher’s website.

Calder, whose wife Jennifer (nee Sinclair) is also from Wick, took up writing following a successful career in research and marketing which resulted in the award of a CBE in 1996 for services to the chemical industry.