Da Vinci's Summary

Full Review

Plot Summary: This book is at first about simply a murder mystery in which Robert Langdon, a symbologist in Paris for a conference, is suspected by Bezu Fache, the Paris chief of police. Langdon is then kidnapped/rescued by the murder victim's grand daughter. Following a miraculously written escape from the Louvre, Sophie (the grand daughter) and Langdon follow a trail of clues left in place by the murder victim in his last minutes of life. This leads them to all sorts of places in Paris, and eventually England, in the search for the Holy Grail, all the while being chased by a mysterious character who isn't unveiled to us until one of the final chapters, in one of the finest, most well written end-of-book twists I've ever read. Here I've given only minor details, because describing the entire plot is pretty daunting to me, seeing as how vast and complicated it is. I've done the best I can here.

The reason I've given this book five stars is because of the plot, and the writing style. Brown seems to keep the book mixed with great action scenes, many historical messages, and incredibly intriguing mystery. Heck, this book would be a bestseller from its murder mystery aspect itself. But Dan Brown didn't settle with brilliant a brilliant mystery book. He took it a few steps further, creating an excellent historical base. This was the first time I had heard the alternate belief of Jesus Christ's existence and what the Holy Grail is, and I found it very interesting. And as I mentioned, this historical great historical book is mixed with seemiless ease into a fascinating murder mystery. It's like two best sellers in one!

The characters were a bit thin, I suppose, but this detracts nothing from the over all rating and enjoyability of this book. (Also, I found it a tad irritating that Sophie Neveu was always referred to as 'Sophie', while most other characters were always called by there last names. I would have preferred all characters called by there first names, but this is a minor pet peeve of mine that no one should take into account unless it annoys you, too. I just thought I would put it out there). I imagine more character development would add about 25 pages onto the book, but not much else. This book's strengths lie in its plot, meticulous details, and some great chase scenes. For this particular book, a