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With its southwest France location and Holy Grail-centred conspiracy, Kate Mosse's breakthrough novel Labyrinth was inevitably compared with The Da Vinci Code. For her latest book, Sepulchre - which, like its predecessor, divides its narrative between different time periods - the 47-year-old author pays tribute to Dan Brown's bestseller by setting the contemporary storyline partly in the village of Rennes-le-Chateau, which is inundated with tourists seeking to explore The Da Vinci Code's settings.
"My husband Greg and I have been spending time in the area for 20 years now," says Mosse, who is based in Chichester and owns a house in the larger town of Carcassonne, where Sepulchre also takes place. "Dan Brown has never been there, he has no connection with it at all. Labyrinth, Sepulchre and a third book have been planned in my mind for more than 10 years so you have to decide whether you are going to back away from the place or do you accept that there are many stories you can tell."
At Sepulchre's recent French launch in the nearby Rennes-les-Bains, yet another of the novel's settings, Mosse met Henry Lincoln who, along with Richard Leigh and New Zealander Michael Baigent, co-wrote The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail which controversially was claimed as the inspiration for The Da Vinci Code.
"He was the sensible one who didn't sue Dan Brown," says Mosse. "He said that my books were wonderful and I have put Rennes-les-Bains on the map. That was very generous of him because he knows the area at least as well as I do. It was particularly exciting for my two children because he wrote Doctor Who in the 1960s including the first yeti story."
Unfortunately, the success of The Da Vinci Code has radically transformed Rennes-le-Chateau for the worst. "It has totally changed," says Mosse. "They have had to shut the graveyard and they've exhumed the priest's body, moved it out of holy ground and made a false grave. It's a travesty but it's not Dan Brown's fault. It would be crazy not to mention The Da Vinci Code in my book. I have no doubt that Labyrinth and Sepulchre have sold millions of copies because they were published after The Da Vinci Code."
With its timeslip narrative structure - which contrasts events in the past with occurrences in the here and now - Mosse's novels are distinctly different to The Da Vinci Code's more traditional story arc.
"I like the idea that stories are layered one on top of the other," she says. "You separate yourself from the past at your peril because it's not just about who you are, it's also about learning lessons and trying not to repeat mistakes although history suggests that we have learnt nothing."
Sepulchre alternates between American academic Meredith Martin, who is writing an autobiography of Achille-Claude Debussy in 2007, and brother and sister Leonie and Antole Vernier, who were acquaintances of the renowned composer in Paris in 1891 before relocating to Domaine de la Cade, a remote estate outside Rennes-les-Bains.
"I really thought that Debussy was going to appear in some way," says Mosse. "But for me it's wrong to fictionalise real people, whose descendents are still alive. I felt he is very well documented and there are lots of letters, so for me to make up stuff is not on. That's why he is off-stage."
Despite its serious themes, Mosse insists that Sepulchre is primarily a classic adventure yarn. "It's all about the plot and if the plot doesn't work then the book doesn't either. It doesn't matter how much you love the landscape or write great description, it's the story that drives the book forward. That's why people pick up such novels; the biggest compliment you can get is when a reader says they couldn't put it down."
Mosse intends to return to the region for her next novel.
"It's a question of whether I think I am done with the southwest of France. I thought I would want to write about somewhere else but now I realise I'm not finished. Originally I had an idea for a trilogy but I backed away from that because Labyrinth and Sepulchre felt like such stand-alone stories. At the same time I realised it was the place that linked them together, not the story."
But before Mosse begins her next novel in earnest, she has to conclude Sepulchre's extensive international promotional duties, which includes a visit to New Zealand next week.
"Labyrinth and Sepulchre have both been published in 38 languages now. I am really interested in how readers in other countries respond to the books and I want to go to these places. Last time I tried to work on Sepulchre while I was still touring Labyrinth but I now realise I need to get all the touring out of the way first.
"I will start thinking properly about the new book in the autumn. There are things that keep flipping in and out of my head but I keep pushing them away. I can't think about it at the moment."
MEET KATE MOSSE
St Columba Centre, 40 Vermont St, Ponsonby, Auckland, September 9, 8pm; tickets $12 from the Women's Bookshop, womensbookshop.co.nz; Takapuna Library, September 10, noon, entry $2; shorelibraries.govt.nz/Events/
