The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus, by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas (Arrow, £6.99 in UK)

An advertising executive, and an electrical engineer look, at four thousand years of religion through the eyes of free masonry and discover surprise, surprise - that things are not what they have always, seemed. The pair admit their lack of classical scholarship up front, but it doesn't stop them rampaging cheerfully through texts from ancient Egypt, Sumeria, Galilee and medieval France in their eagerness to prove that masonic rituals are descended from Egyptian burial ceremonies and priceless scrolls dating from the time of Christ - who, they claim, was a hunchback whose teachings were hijacked and distorted by Saint Paul - are buried under a church in the depths of Scotland. Bizarre? Undoubtedly, but a truly terrific read.