The Da Vinci Code

by Dan Brown

My prejudice against mainstream fiction would normally keep me well away from this book, but it was a christmas present so I gave it a try. At first glance the plot is standard thriller stuff, a man and a woman, framed for a murder and trying to uncover the identity of the real killer, but it also involves secret societies, Templars and Freemasons and so on.

Brown is a reasonable writer, I managed to breeze through the book in a couple of hours and it was never boring or a chore to read. The biggest criticism I can make is that the characters are about as two dimensional as they come. Whenever the narrative strayed into the characters private thoughts I felt like I was reading half rate fanfic or something. The other big problem for me was that I found the plot to be incredibly predictable. On the first page we meet a character whose surname is Sauniere. Before too long we meet his grandaughter Sophie. If you know what those names mean, you can probably guess where the story is going to end up.

So I knew the Super Incredible Twist that so blew away the critics quoted on the blurb almost before starting the book. That kind of created an obstacle to my enjoyment of it, but (and I'll use roundabout language here to avoid spoilers) I do find the subject of the twist to be quite fascinating, and there were a few interesting details about it (mostly to do with Da Vinci's art) that I'd never heard before, so I'm glad I read it. I could have done without having to read the generic thriller to get to those bits though. However I will give the author credit for keeping me guessing as to the nature of the baddie all the way up to the cheesy, cliched revelation.

One more note, the version I read was the collectors edition hardback with lots of pretty pictures. The pictures were very pretty and complemented the story very nicely.