THE DA VINCI CODE

Dan Brown

Bantam Press £10.99 tbk Rel: July 2003

Reviewed by Paul Charles

What exactly is the point of a book review?

It shouldn’t be full of smart Alex cheap shots; it certainly shouldn’t be a three hundred word, thirty-minute-effort, get-even, put-down of a novel some author has spend at least a year on.

It should be a description of the qualities of the book in question so that potential readers can decide whether or not they want to part with their hard-earned cash.

Having said all of that I really couldn’t encourage you enough to go out and purchase The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.

It’s a thrill a minute, cleverly plotted, fast paced, genuinely un-put- down-able (I read it in two sittings) classic. It’s got religion, art world background, real life clues, secret societies, clandestine sects, code breaking, a hidden religious relic, a Mickey Mouse watch, and a beautiful heroine. It’s an exciting cross between, King Solomon’s Mines, Harry Potter and Raiders of The Lost Arc. It’s hysterical, historical and more informative than the recent BBC television series on Leonardo Da Vinci. It’ll send your mind off in a thousand different tangents - all worthy and all thoroughly enjoyable.

The hero, Professor Richard Langdon - a Boy’s Own type hero - is James Bond without the gadgets. Langdon is maybe a tad more Hugh Grant than Harrison Ford. Brown obviously has big long-term plans for the Harvard Professor; he has only given away little snippets of background information and history on Langdon in his two outings - The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons - leaving fuller fleshing out until (hopefully) further volumes.

It’s a great story, a BIG story, a believable story, flawlessly told by an author at a creative peak and the point of this review is to try and encourage you to check this particular gem out.

More than that we cannot do.