The Messianic Legacy by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln

I realize now that I should have read Holy Blod, Holy Grail first, but to be completely honest, I got this book as an Amazon Reccomendation and didn't quite realize what I was doing. I have a feeling the previous book would've been far more interesting.
Not to say that this book wasn't interesting. The first part of this book was really good. They talk about Jesus not necessarily being a prophet, but rather a revolutionary trying to drive the Romans out. It also talks about Jesus' brother, James, who was to take over the revolution after Jesus was killed. They talk about the garden of Genthesame and how there's reason to believe that Jesus wasn't taken peacefully.
There are other little tidbits that really do get you thinking, and like I said, the first part is really pretty good.
BUT,
The second part becomes a kind of soap box. And the third part is basically the authors trying to reimburse/prove things that were said in the previous book. I suppose if I'd read the previous book first, it might hold some relavance to me. But it just seemed a little excessive to me. They talk about all the letters and emails they received from the first book, so I'm guessing they might've gotten some nasty-grams and/or Doubting Thomases and they felt compelled to refute accusations or statements that only they have seen.
Overall-- I wish I'd either looked for the book used to purchase or checked out at the library. But on the other hand, it does make me curious about their previous book, which I have a feeling is much better.