Any Old Iron

Burgess is one of our most underrated novelists and this is a million miles away from his best known work, A Clockwork Orange. Spanning some of the great events of the 20th Century, this book follows the fortunes of a family of Welsh-Russians, the Jones, as they become bound up with the ancient sword of King Arthur, Excalibur, Welsh Nationalism and Anglo-Russian relations. There is also the small matter of the birth of the state of Israel and the Jewish family who's fortunes become entangled with the Joneses.
If all this sounds slightly fantastic, it is a credit to Burgess' talent that he makes the whole thing immensely readable and enjoyable. Burgess takes the position that the world went to Hell in a handcart after the second world war and makes that point over and over again through the travails of the Jones family as they are buffeted by the events of the First and Second World Wars and their aftermath.
A note to Dan Brown: this is how you weave a pseudo-historical mystery into your narrative and invest it with meaning and symbolism. Recommended.