The Da Vinci Code

By Dan Brown

“When a question has no correct answer, there is only one honest response. The grey area between yes and no.”

The story starts with the murder of the Louvre curator, Jacques Saunière. He is shot in the stomach inside the Louvre Museum by an albino monk, Silas. Before he dies he manages to set up his first puzzle, and this is where main characters Robert Landon and Sophie Neveu come in. Jacques Saunière’s first puzzle is meant as a secret coded message to his granddaughter Sophie Neveu, a cryptologist and Parisian police agent. Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor and expert on religious symbology, is drawn into the murder when the Police Inspector on the case believes he is the killer. Sophie, knowing Robert is innocent, helps him escape from the Louvre. Together they embark on a quest to find the real killer.

It is a quest full of puzzles and riddles. It turns out the dead curator was a member of the Priory of Sion, which is an ancient secret society tasked with protecting the truth about Jesus Christ. This is a society which is claimed to have included Sandro Boticelli, Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci as members.

The novel is a fascinating mystery with compelling stories of Catholicism, conspiracy and insanity, also suggesting an alternative version of the Bible; that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and a child was born of this marriage, and that Mary and her child fled after the crucifixion to Gaul, where they established the Merovingian line of European royalty.

A brilliant mystery with so many twists, it is hard not to get totally engrossed in the story. A real page turner.