Rating: 
Summary: Amazing!!!
Review: Many good surprises! It was nearly impossible to put down, but I had to sleep sometime. I just kept turning the pages to see what was next. You need to buy this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite the Holy Grail of thrillers
Review: The book unfolds in fairly typical thriller fashion: the protagonist, mistakenly accused of murder, finds himself in possession of something for which the real murderer will kill again. Therefore he must run from the police and the bad guys alike, while seeking to solve the murder mystery. The bad guys appear to be part of a larger conspiracy - are they trying to obtain, reveal, or destroy an ages-old secret? As he works to solve the mystery, biblical scholar Robert Langdon draws on - and explains endlessly - his research regarding secret religious societies and alternate interpretations of key Christian symbols. I found the history to be interesting if not always accurate.The historical material is grafted onto the basic thriller format without being integral to it, and that is my key criticism of this book. Unlike, say, Eco at his best, Brown did not make me feel the weight of the esoteric topic under investigation. Without giving away all the details, I will say that I became increasingly skeptical that the secrets in question would be so earth-shattering if revealed; rather they would be as open to interpretation as the more traditional Biblical canon. Still, Brown kept me turning the pages even as I felt increasingly frustrated with the clunky predictability of the plot.
Rating: 
Summary: fake history and grade b writing
Review: As with others, I found the lack of research appalling. From Brown's assertions about the council of Nicaea, to his dates for the gnostic gospels, to his factiods about Constantine--this novel is rife with both errors and willful replacement of fact with fantasy. Further, the writing style, grammer and syntax left me feeling like I was reading a high school newspaper. If Brown wants to join the ranks of Umberto Eco, he'll have to work a lot harder the next time around.
Rating:
Summary: Cypher This
Review: What a disappointment. Brown's story starts out well enough, a murder in a museum, a secret religious society and couple of relatively attractive characters thrown together in a break-neck paced plot. So what went wrong? Just about everything. By the end of this book I found myself screaming - Get on with it!!! What's the point of so many cryptic references - it felt like I was working my way through a puzzle book. Brown tries so hard to impress us with the "mystery" of the Holy Grail and his pseudo-religious plotline that he forgets to tell the story.
Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment.
Review: The story is unusual, I'll give it that much. But don't editors do their jobs at all any more? There are so many grammar errors peppered throughout the book that I have to wonder if anybody with a basic grasp of the rules of written English read the manuscript before publication. Someone should teach either Mr. Brown or his editors the difference between "like" and "as," the proper use of the past imperfect tense, and how to conjugate the verb "lay" before he publishes another book. As for factual accuracy, I am no Grail historian, but there were some blatant bloopers. For instance, the left brain is listed as the "irrational" half of the brain in a list of left-sided items that are supposedly wrongfully associated with femininity. The left half of the brain, of course, is the logical, analytical side. It's the right brain that is supposedly more intuitive and irrational. And the association comes from scientific research, not from dastardly Catholic propaganda. If the book got something as obvious as this wrong, I have to assume that many of its more esoteric "facts" are just as far off. Finally, most of the clues, supposedly so terribly hard to guess that a Harvard symbologist has to be recruited to analyze them, are painfully transparent. I guessed every one of them long before the characters did. All told -- a big disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Book with an agenda!
Review: It is poorly written, atrociously researched mess although the author claims are facts. But despite Brown's scholarly airs, a writer who thinks the Merovingians founded Paris and forgets that the popes once lived in Avignon is hardly a model researcher. And for him to state that the Church burned five million women as witches shows a willful-and malicious-ignorance of the historical record. The latest figures for deaths during the European witch craze are between 30,000 to 50,000 victims. Not all were executed by the Church, not all were women, and not all were burned. Brown's claim that educated women, priestesses, and midwives were singled out by witch-hunters is not only false, it betrays his goddess-friendly sources. So error-laden is The Da Vinci Code that the educated reader actually applauds those rare occasions where Brown stumbles (despite himself) into the truth. A few examples of his "impeccable" research: He claims that the motions of the planet Venus trace a pentacle (the so-called Ishtar pentagram) symbolizing the goddess. But it isn't a perfect figure and has nothing to do with the length of the Olympiad. The ancient Olympic games were celebrated in honor of Zeus Olympias, not Aphrodite, and occurred every four years. If the above seems like a pile driver applied to a gnat, the blows are necessary to demonstrate the utter falseness of Brown's material. His willful distortions of documented history are more than matched by his outlandish claims about controversial subjects. But to a postmodernist, one construct of reality is as good as any other. Brown's approach seems to consist of grabbing large chunks of his stated sources and tossing them together in a salad of a story.
Read http://www.crisismagazine.com/feature1.htm
The Da Vinci Code takes esoterica mainstream. It may well do for Gnosticism what The Mists of Avalon did for paganism-gain it popular acceptance. After all, how many lay readers will see the blazing inaccuracies put forward as buried truths?
What's more, in making phony claims of scholarship, Brown's book infects readers with a virulent hostility toward Catholicism. Dozens of occult history books, conveniently cross-linked by Amazon.com, are following in its wake. And booksellers' shelves now bulge with falsehoods few would be buying without The Da Vinci Code connection. While Brown's assault on the Catholic Church may be a backhanded compliment, it's one we would have happily done without.
Rating:
Summary: Not the Worst Book in the Universe - but close...
Review: Here I was, ready to read a great religious thriller that had been highly recommended by friends as the best thing they had ever read... Well, needless to say, I won't be going to them for reading advice again! What a disappointment. Thin plot (my wife's one-month-old pantyhose are thicker), cardboard box characters (three dimensional but empty inside), and cliches ("Outside, the wind howled in the trees." - please) detract heavily from the truly fascinating information Brown seems to have gathered together. This "hidden in plain sight" information is what should have made the book a great read. Instead, it seems to be just an excuse to string together a movie treatment for sale to a major studio. (I could just hear "Coming soon! The major motion picture the Catholic Church didn't want made! Starring Harrison Ford as Langdon and Meg Ryan as Sophie...") And wasn't it convenient how one piece of information led to the next? If all this is right out in plain sight for an intrepid symbologist and a plucky detective to find, why hasn't the "Priory of Sion" been exposed? Why don't we know more about Mary Magdalene? Oh well, buy it if you must, but don't say you weren't warned...
Rating:
Summary: If I could give it less then one star I would!
Review: I have to agree with the other 1 star reviewers..this book is AWFUL. It does read like a high school "first draft". Silly plot, too much gibberish, just a complete waste of time. I usually stay away from the BEST SELLER list, now I know why!! And, no, I didn't buy this book, a well meaing friend sent it to me. My advice, wait for the awful movie that is sure to follow!!Whatever happened to intelligent, thoughtful, truly interesting writing???????
Rating: 
Summary: enjoyable religious thriller
Review: Harvard University symbologist Robert Langdon is in Paris when he is awakened in the middle of the night by the police to come to the Louvre. Someone killed museum chief curator Jacques Saunier in the most secure section, Grand Gallery near the Mona Lisa. The culprit left behind enigmatic messages including bringing Langdon into the investigation. The police syspect Langdon killed the curator, but cannot prove it. Meanwhile he joins with French cryptologist Sophie Neveuto in an effort to solve the puzzle of the message that both believe will lead to the identity of the killer. They begin to decode clues that when combined forms a map depicting the locale of the Holy Grail and proof of the existence of Jesus. However, several secret societies will use anything including murder to insure that the Grail remains hidden. The sequel to the exciting tale ANGELS AND DEMONS, THE DA VINCI CODE is a fast-paced tale that will provide much pleasure to readers who enjoy religious thrillers. The police procedural takes a back seat to the engaging Langdon-Neveuto deciphering of the codes as the two characters are a delightful lead pair. Though the story line occasionally detours into religious history sermons, fans will appreciate this fine action-packed novel. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful read
Review: This is one of the most intelligent books I have read in quite a while. Really sucks you in from page 1 and doesn't let go. Despite the intellectual drama of the plot, this book is written in surprisingly accessible prose. Each time I see someone reading this book, I find myself a bit jealous that I can't experience it again wtih them!
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