Well, I succumbed to temptation and started reading Dan Brown’s other books - ‘The DaVinci Code’ and ‘Angels and Demons’. I can dismiss A&D in one word - abysmal!
The DaVinci Code is another matter and shows that Dan Brown knows his readership too well. he has captured those countless numbers who have a little knowledge. And Dan Brown takes this little knowledge and expands it to sound still reasonable. If you have more than a little knowledge then the book is just his other’s - unreasonably simplistic. For crying out loud, DB seems to think that an anagram is the highest form of coding. And as for the other cryptic clues - ‘old wisdom’ - who doesn’t think Sophia? Especially when that’s the heroine’s name!
The best thing about the book is the design of the box that holds the clue - the cryptex. It’s a clever little device which is really a hollow combination lock. Pretty easy to make. And a few enterprising craft workers have started marketing them. Don’t get me wrong - the cryptex is a toy and is not to be considered a high form of secure transport. Not as good as some of the briefcases on the market.
Another positive for me was the interest it generated in me to have a look on the web at the different sites mentioned in the book: The Louvre Museum, Saint Sulpice Church, The Rose Line, Rosslyn Church in Scotland, Westminster Abbey.
The biggest lie though is the terrible way in which the Opus Dei organisation is described. While I do not agree with much that OD stands for, a poor debater will often resort to personal insult rather than fact. It would have been better if DB had resorted to fact.
Whichever way you look at it, DB has written a very clever book. Not a good book, in fact quite bad in places. But patched with lots of half truths and reasonable leaps ‘of faith’ it becomes an old fashioned matinee serial in which belief is suspended for the sake of following the heros to wherever they may go next.