[Sherry Burroughs](/columnists/Sherry+Burroughs)  
1/26/2005

Authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail sue for copyright infringement.

The New Zealand Herald has reported that the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, acknowledged by Dan Brown as a source for his bestseller The Da Vinci Code, are suing the book's publishers.  
  
New Zealand-born author Michael Baigent and his American co-author Richard Leigh have filed a copyright suit against Random House Group in Great Britain, claiming Brown used a "substantial" portion of their book and research without their permission. Holy Blood, Holy Grail, a non-fiction work published in 1982, generated death and bomb threats against the authors and the publisher because of its theory that Jesus Christ may have married and had children.