Rating: 
Summary: Well researched & interesting concept
Review: Mr. Brown has done an excellent job of taking lots of facts and theories and weaving them together into an interesting story. Although it's billed as a mystery, it's really more of a theoretical theology tale. Mr. Brown certainly did a lot of research for this book. A lot of the premises that he sets forth, I checked up on and found them to be real.For example, yes, there really is an Opus Dei. Yes, there is a web site....Read his description of Da Vinci's last supper with a good copy of it at hand to follow along. It's astounding how the symbolism he describes is there. I'm sure that Mr. Brown has done nothing to endear himself with some in the Catholic community, since he does paint the church in somewhat the light of the 'bad guy', but none the less, he has put forward a very interesting theory. I'm sure that if I were a student of comparative religions, of the Knights Templar or of symbology many of the theories that Mr. Brown has put forward are in the learned literature, but Mr. Brown has put them into an enjoyable read for us common folks. I must however subtract one star from the book for the same criticisms that many of the other reviewers have stated. The only character that is given any real motivation seems to be Silas. All the other characters seem to be there for the delivery of dialogue to explain the theory that Mr. Brown is developing.
Rating: 
Summary: inflamatory hooey
Review: Mr. Brown has gone on record saying that the assertions he makes in this book regarding the conspiratorial influence of the Catholic church are accurate. His "research", however, is
based almost entirely on dubious accounts. What scholarly information he does use is taken out of context and spun to support laughable conclusions. I found Mr. Brown's suggestions concerning the repression of the "sacred feminine" chauvinistic at best and just plain goofy. I am not a Catholic, but if I were I would be offended and troubled by this inflamatory hokum. It strikes me as the kind of trash that fuels intolerence and persecution.
Rating:
Summary: Pseudo intellectuals rejoice! Your book has arrived!
Review: Mr. Brown has succeeded in taking a pamphlet's worth of interesting information on DaVinci, mixing it with bits of Holy Blood, and churning out a 400 plus page book filled with a series of non-harrowing escapes (aided unintentionally by some of the most inept police work since the Keystone Cops), 4th grade level word games, and characters with less depth than a kiddie pool. The plot Deus Ex Machinas all over the place, the writer intervening with fate, physics and facts whenever he sees fit in order to insure the welfare of his characters. In Brown's world armor trucks aren't so armored, characters sit virtually inactive 'off-panel' for chapters, drivers involved in high speed getaways at night can NOTE THEIR PASSENGER'S WATCH FACES, and a professor of symbolism and a cryptographer have problems with puzzles a chimp with ADD could solve (Oh, be sure to give the chimp a mirror though for the backwards writing. Quite a stumper that one). Maybe I'm being too hard on the story, but from all the hype it got I expected more. I believe I've read at least 3 of the books Brown 'borrowed' from so for me some of the 'revelations' presented in the book were a little like watching a magician perform tricks you already know...
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic Read --- I couldn't put it down
Review: Mr. Brown has written one of the most engaging historical fiction books I have read as of yet. Simply put, it was so engrossing that I had to tear myself away from it. The bottom line is that after reading the first half of the book in one sitting, I went out and purchased all of his works to date (Digital Fortress, Deception Point, and Angels & Demons) and cannot wait to see what he comes up with next.
Rating:
Summary: Needs better research on his background
Review: Mr. Brown is capable to telling a good tale and making it interesting and fun. The Da Vinci Code, while well written, is based on a set of premises too fantastic for anyone with any background on the subject to believe. I bought this book for my wife, thinking it would be a fun mystery. We were both very disappointed in that it seems Mr. Brown is more interested in advancing his bizzare view of history than entertaining the reader. Suspension of disbeliefe was impossible with this book.
Rating:
Summary: Dan Browns body ...of work
Review: Mr. Brown is on a quest to defame the Catholic church. It seems to be his holy grail, so to speak. I suppose fact and thoughtful consideration would be too much of a stretch so he has resorted to attacks with little in the way of fact behind them that are meant to inspire paranoia. From the popularity of this book it would appear that much of the public is eating it up. It is oh so fashionable to pile on the Catholic church right now. Why? Even though that nasty business with the Crusades is far behind them, the church has much "splainin" to do with those mounting molestation charges. Mr. Brown has produced a flimsy, mediocre, opportunist, and mercenary novel. He is a genius in the same way that Madonna is a genius. The new-age definition for genius: Anyone who can sniff out a trend, exploit and capitalize on it with little regard for truth, artistic value, or the repercussions of their actions.
Rating:
Summary: anti Catholic bigotry in a dime novel 'thriller'
Review: Mr. Brown spends nearly the whole book just slamming the Vatican, the Pope(s) and especially Opus Dei. Then on the last few pages he sort of lets the Vatican off the hook, revealing how they were just being framed by the bad guy.
Up front he lays out a statement of 'facts' and gives the reader the impression that, while the book is a fiction novel, the historical details are true.
But at one point he states outright that on the famous Friday 13th, Oct. 1307 the Pope sent 'his army' to round up and kill all the Templars.
Hmmmm. In 1307 the only 'army' the Pope could try to command in France was the Templars themselves. Maybe the Hospitallers and Tuetonic knights could have been available to some degree in France, but in much smaller numbers. Yet one order was not likely to raise a hand against the other.
The fact is that the king of France, Phillipe Le Bel, hatched the entire plan and executed the whole business through his own seneschals. It did not go off quite as planned with only a relative handful of knights being arrested and many of those 'escaped' or were released. None of the portable wealth was confiscated, just real estate. The Pope's only complicity was in loosely worded Bulls charging heresy, which while unproven in the modern sense, there is a fair amount of evidence that the Templars were indeed a heretical order. This book was a good reminder why I don't read fiction much anymore.
Rating: 
Summary: the irony
Review: Mr. Brown uses the very same tactics that he suggests the Catholic church has used over the centuries to mislead the world. By mixing fiction with a little fact he has managed to challenge what many have accepted as the truth, but it would be giving Brown too much credit to suggest that this is what he meant to do with this book--to illustrate that irony. As far as the writing goes it is a fast, often annoying read. Mr. Brown loves adjectives to the point of redundancy. Here are some I would use to describe The Da Vinci Code: shallow, wooden, uninspired, trite, and clunky.
Rating:
Summary: Page Turning Mystery
Review: Mr. Brown's book is a high paced action mystery thriller. It is obviously written for mass market digestion, as he uses effusive foreshadowing that allows the reader to figure out the solutions to the plots and subplots well in advance of Brown revealing them. However, the book is great fun to read. When evaluating detective/mystery books, I always try to compare them to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books, which really are the only books in this genre that I feel are truly literature in the classic sense. Brown's book does not live up to that literary test, but it does live up to most other tests of what readers would consider a good read. If you enjoy page turning mystery with a theological theme, this is truly a wonderful read.
Rating:
Summary: It's good, it's bad, it's ugly!
Review: Mrs. White did it with the candlestick in the dining room. Or did Professor Plum do it with the knife in the observatory? Sorry to start out with a "Clue" analogy but if you aren't prepared for a serious brain twister, you had better choose another book to read. This was my first Dan Brown book. On one hand, I can tell you that it will not be the last time I read one of his books. On the other hand, I can also tell you that, while I hung onto every page, the book left me a little empty. The Good: Dan Brown had me captivated from the very first few pages and the book turned out to be a real page turner. Brown's story challenges the very foundation of Christianity in a very unabashed fashion, spinning a complex yarn that, to me, seemed plausible. Brown bravely stays true to his storyline knowing that many Christians and certainly most Catholics will throw the book down in disgust less than a third of the way through on general principle. The book really, really makes you think. Several times, I paused long enough to access the internet and look up a print of a Da Vinci painting to see exactly what Brown refered to. The storyline was incredibly interesting and stimulating. The bad: I would have liked to have seen Brown turn more of a critical eye to the Priory, using his characters to communicate a Christian position to many of the assertions concerning the role of Mary Magdelene in biblical history. Instead, Brown's storyline simply portrays the Catholic Church as a narrow-minded, book-burning political machine that shaped Christianity for their own personal reasons. The Ugly: While the book was riveting throughout, the climax (no pun intended) was very underwhelming - not at all the enlightening ending I was expecting. The ending sort of reminded me of the song, "One Tin Soldier", where wars are waged over the discovery of a message, which turned out to be relatively simple instead of profound. All in all, I really enjoyed the book. CAUTION: if you are a devout Christian who believes that the New Testament as we know it today was divinely inspired and 100% literal, don't waste your time. It will only make you angry.
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