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The
Da Vinci Code
Written
by Dan Brown
Reviewed
by Susan Lanning
GOOD
NEWS, BAD NEWS. Bad news is always easier when swallowed first.
So here it is. In this book, Dan Brown has shown himself to be
an amateur writer. His sentencing is often sing-song, his characters
are fairly cardboard and not memorable, his settings in most cases
aren't vivid, improbable occurrences and coincidences abound like
flies on spoiled meat, and the number of puzzles to unravel reaches
the ludicrous.
Furthermore,
the reader is usually five steps ahead of the characters. Ex:
Character, "We need a ten digit code to open the box."
Reader, "Oh, let's see. Could it be - just a guess - the
ten digits the man wrote on the museum floor before he died?"
Five pages later - you got it - the character finally figures
it out.
Now for the
good news. The information in the book is fascinating, much of
it historically researched and painstakingly chronicled. There
is a strong, sit on the edge of your chair, suspense - however
contrived. The timing is close with short chapters that swing
back and forth between characters, keeping the protagonists in
constant peril and the reader either guessing or waiting for the
characters to figure it out. We're taken to an array of international
settings in an incredible yet intricate plot. The whole thing
moves like a fast video game.
Over all,
if you can forgive the author his lack of style and his unlikely
coincidences, The Da Vinci Code is one fun read.
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