Product Description

Robert Langdon, Harvard Professor of symbology, receives an urgent late-night call while in Paris: the curator of the Louvre has been murdered. Alongside the body is a series of baffling ciphers. Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Da Vinci - and further. The curator, part of a secret society named the Priory of Sion, may have sacrificed his life to keep secret the location of a vastly important religious relic hidden for centuries. It appears that the clandestine Vatican-sanctioned Catholic sect Opus Dei has now made its move. Unless Landon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the pieces of the puzzle, the Priory's secret - and a stunning historical truth - will be lost forever.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1206 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 605 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
With The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoterica culled from 2,000 years of Western history. A murder in the silent after-hours halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ. The victim is a high-ranking agent of this ancient society who, in the moments before his death, manages to leave gruesome clues at the scene that only his granddaughter, noted cryptographer Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, a famed symbologist, can untangle.

The duo become both suspects and detectives searching not only for Neveu's grandfather's murderer, but also the stunning secret of the ages he was charged to protect. Mere steps ahead of the authorities and the deadly competition, the mystery leads Neveu and Langdon on a breathless flight through France, England and history itself. Brown has created a page-turning thriller that also provides an amazing interpretation of Western history. Brown's hero and heroine embark on a lofty and intriguing exploration of some of Western culture's greatest mysteries--from the nature of the Mona Lisa's smile to the secret of the Holy Grail. Though some will quibble with the veracity of Brown's conjectures, therein lies the fun. The Da Vinci Code is an enthralling read that provides rich food for thought. --Jeremy Pugh, Amazon.com

From the Back Cover
An ingenious code hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci

A desperate race through the cathedrals and castles of Europe

An astonishing truth concealed for centuries…revealed at last.

‘Wow … Blockbuster perfection … An exhilaratingly brainy thriller. Not since the advent of Harry Potter has an author so flagrantly delighted in leading readers on a breathless chase’
NEW YORK TIMES

Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes. As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, begin to sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that reveals a mystery stretching deep into the vault of history.

But unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the pieces of the puzzle, a stunning historical truth will be lost forever…

‘Brown’s novel adroitly blends the chase-scene-stuffed thrillers of Robert Ludlum and the learned romps of Umberto Eco…For anyone who wants more brain-food than thrillers normally provide’
Sunday Times

About the Author
Dan Brown is the bestselling author of Digital Fortress, Angels and Demons and Deception Point. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Phillips Exeter Academy, where he has taught English and creative writing. He lives in New England and can be found on the web at www.danbrown.com

Customer Reviews

Its Fiction
I loved this book. I read the whole thing on a Sunday, as it was pouring with rain and I fancied passing the time reading.

Which is where I think a lot of people seem to be missing the point. Although the author says at the beginning that there are a few definite facts in the book, he doesn't actually say the whole book is truth! It is ficiton after all.

One of the great things about reading a good book is that you can get lost in a completely different world. This book does that beautifully. It makes suggestions that makes you think but of course no body is claiming we should believe them.

Every chapter ends on a cliff hanger, meaning it is completely unputdownable. Famous landmarks are described in a way that makes you seee them from a different light. The suspense is maintained throughout. It is a fantastic journey, described in immense detail.

I think people who like to pick holes in a subject and find the flaws won't enjoy this book - but maybe they should stick to non fiction anyway. The book is a grown-up Harry Potter, designed to allow you to lose yourself in another world for a few hours.

I really enjoyed this
All the usual bestseller words apply here. Gripping. Un-putdownable. Page Turner.....

I loved this. I was totally immersed in the story and believed every word written. Reviewers are saying that Dan Brown could have done his homework a bit better, but from where I'm sitting I can't fault the book. I loved it so much and found it very entertaining from start to finish.

This was the first book by Brown that I read and upon finishing it I rushed out and bought all his others too. I think it's a close run thing to choose between this and Angels and Demons but A&D 'just' pips 'The Davinci Code' to the better book finish line.......but only just.

This is worth the read.

"Brainy Stuff" if you don't normally use your brain much
This novel wouldn't be receiving quite as much scorn as it is, had it not been for the ludicrous amounts of praise heaped on it beforehand and the claims that this is in some way a thriller for intellectuals. Its supporters defend it by saying "it's only fiction!" which misses the point on two levels: Firstly that the majority of complaints are against the writing style (or lack of it) rather than the theories contained; secondly that Brown smugly (a word that describes so much about this book...) announces the factual basis of some of the storylines on the opening page, colouring our view from then on.

The dodgy writing is the biggest problem. It's one of the worst-written books I've ever encountered, not only written with far too much emphasis on how it will be adapted into a movie, but a bad movie at that. Start taking Brown's characters' reactions literally and the book becomes unintentionally hilarious. If the actors follow the book's descriptions, the film will be full of people gasping, holding their hands over their mouths, actually staggering backwards at the slightest bit of new information, and greeting surprising news by standing up and announcing "this is unbelievable!" to nobody in particular. Brown seems to (justifiably) doubt his ability to make his readers feel any emotion, and so has his cardboard characters wildly overact to give the reader pointers as to how they should be reacting.

Once you've started to hear all the French characters' voices as refugees from "'Allo 'Allo" you won't be able to stop. Similarly the cartoon English Aristocrat, fixated with the Holy Grail but almost equally obsessed with tea and the fact that he "schooled" at Oxford, will forever sound like Sir Bernard Chumley in my head.

I can't even agree with this being a "quick read" - the first half especially is absolutely turgid. It takes the leads over a hundred pages to run down a corridor because they keep having to stop and explain the plot to each other. The background information regarding art history and Grail lore is unceremoniously dumped in, in the form of the characters lecturing each other, or in a couple of instances, the lead character reminiscing fondly about a lecture he's given in the past (he's running for his life at the time.) On these occasions Brown's delusions really come to the fore, with Robert Langdon(clearly based on the author) giving such an inspiring lecture that his students just about stop short of standing on their desks and shouting "oh captain, my captain!" Later a roomful of uninterested prisoners experience a similar Road To Damascus moment as the dull male lead shows them some slides.

Which brings us to Brown's smugness again. I lost count of how many tidbits of information were prefaced with comments like "it often amazed him how few people knew about..." Each revelation is announced with a flourish of "You didn't know about this did you, you proles? But I did, for I am the mighty Dan Brown, and I have read a book! Kneel before me!" Apparently the book in question is called "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," and I haven't read it myself so I hadn't heard the entire conspiracy theory it relates, but I'd heard the majority of its "shocking" component parts from various sources so I'm not sure what he's got to feel so self-satisfied about.

Brown doesn't credit the book of course, nor any others he used for research, as a bibliography might encourage interested readers to follow up on the mythology themselves, rather than just spending the money on Dan Brown's back catalogue like they ought to.

There's so much else to gripe about - the clunking cliche of an albino killer (again with an eye to the film? Having a disconcerting-looking villain saves so much of that pesky character-building work you'd have to do making him creepy, doesn't it? And being universally portrayed as murderous nutters in fiction must be such a thrill to the albino population. I knew an albino when I was growing up and he didn't murder anyone, but maybe that was just laziness on his part.)

Any research that doesn't involve cut-and-paste from someone else's book is clearly too much trouble; the lead has written a book on the Knights Templar but has never before visited the majority of crucial locations they visit, including the Temple Church - so he's obviously modelled on the author then! What a nice mild climate they've got in Scotland. The Metropolitan Police don't seem too worried about these impostors called the London Police who seem to be running all over the place with guns. Maybe they're all having a nice trip on the Millennium Eye - is that near the London Eye?

A waste of time then? Clearly not - it's much too much fun laying into what's wrong with it! It won't make me rush off to buy any more of his books, mind.