While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others. In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive hysterical truth -- will be lost forever. THE DA VINCI CODE heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightening-paced, intelligent thriller…utterly unpredictable right up to its stunning conclusion.

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

Not a book a good Catholic would enjoy reading and I am no fan of the Roman Catholic religion. But I do respect it. And I desire to be buried (after I die, of course) in the Hartford, Wisconsin Catholic graveyard many of my kin have predictably burrowed into. As a fearing-God Christian, I assume the author accuses me of being a simpleton for believing that the retellings and miracles of the Bible actually occurred and were not just fabulous made-up stories from around the campfires of Jews sharing way too many non-pasteurized Coors Lights. In real life, could the author believe differently than the novel's narrating nabob? Sure, but I don't think scribe Dan Brown would chose to believe that we were created by a loving God who imposes never-changing laws and morals on mankind, versus a vague goddess (G oddess in the last chapters) who insists we don masks (black for the males and white for the females) and fornicate (yes, I realize it was his wife, but still) and fornicate, while our fellow believer's dance around us in a May Day type circle. Can you even imagine how many people a religion like that would, by its public rites alone, exclude? Maybe that's why they wear masks in the novel. After traipsing through the first fifty pages, I queried my teen son, who remains more in touch with the commercial world, "How could this book ever be a number one seller?" He replied that, "Dad, they advertised it non-stop: billboards, the whole thing, marketing." Okay. Before I left work today, holding up my maroon edition of The DaVinci Code, I asked my coworker if he had completed his copy yet. "You know, Mark," Mike began in his Georgia drawl, "My wife bought it for me and I tried to read it and there were all these fancy words and European locations, that I just gave up and read something I could understand." I know how he felt. I wonder how many other of the tens of thousands who purchased this bestseller also could not wait until midnight to sneak by the nearest white clad maw of a Visiting Nurse Service book donation bin and feed it The DaVinci Code. Your Mark Wonderful, possessing a vocabulary quiver exceeded only by that of William F. Buckley Jr., and my Scottsdale neighbor, G.Gordon Liddy, National Review contributor Benjamin Stein, and former side-kick, Jimmy Kimmel, was forced to two-hand my seven pound, cherry red Webster's more than a few times during the first several chapters. Thankfully, after about one hundred pages, the reading became about one-third as quick as the "lightening-pace" that the publisher promises. (By the way Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language published in 1994, defines LIGHTENING as, the descent of the uterus into the pelvic cavity . . .  The word they most likely meant to use is LIGHTNING - the one without the 'E'.) Also, at the one hundred page juncture, I wasn't going to shelve the book anyway, because I'm not a quitter; it was a Christmas gift (an odd one, considering what Christmas celebrates) and I had too many hours invested in finding out what "The Holy Grail" really was. By the way, do not purchase the book in the hopes of discovering what The Grail may be. Instead snag a copy of the video Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It's tons more fun, much cheaper and won't try to cram the failed religion of the multi-gods & goddesses believing primitives down your pants.
Christian's click here

Dan Brown's best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code, has become a global phenomenon, and introduced millions of readers to a mysterious world where Leonardo Da Vinci encoded hidden meanings into his paintings; strange symbols are engraved in a remote British chapel; and the Catholic church and an ancient secret society are locked into a centuries-old battle to gain control of the ultimate prize; the Holy Grail.

But how much of the novel is actually true and what is fictional distortion? Cracking the Da Vinci Code: An A to Z Guide to the Facts Behind the Fiction is the first book to cut through the confusion and disclose the amazing facts that underpin the plot. In a simple A-Z format it reveals the historical basis of the secrets contained in the book, including background information on all the key figures, reproductions of the symbols encoded in the paintings, and insider knowledge such as the riddles hidden in the characters' names . . .

Mr.Wonderful Writes:

Do not buy this book unless you have read Dan Brown's, The Da Vinci Code. You should be able to purchase a lightly used edition <grin> of Mr. Brown's yawner fairly inexpensively at your neighborhood brick and mortar, Half Price Books or from the internet-based HamiltonBooks.com or Powells.com. Cracking the Da Vinci Code is a glossary of terms, events and individuals mentioned in The Da Vinci Code. If you are of the analytical bent, you will find this book enhances rather than subtracts from your reading experience of TDC. Author Simon Cox simply reports what he has discovered about each term, event or individual while rarely rendering a judgment and never resorting to religiosity in order to prove a point. For example, oftentimes, if not enough evidence is known, he simply states that sufficient evidence has not been discovered to prove the facts one way or the other. He exposes how Dan Brown takes a known historical or physical fact and then slyly appends a his own concoction in order to make the facts fit the fiction. Cracking the Da Vinci Code is a short 160 page book that someone with zero knowledge of Christianity (say, the Pope for instance . . . okay, okay, just kidding) could read and enjoy. And for those wishing to continue research on their own, a "Recommended" reading list of ten books coupled with an excellent bibliography resides in the back of the book. The Da Vinci Code is a novel and by definition that means there may be as little truth in it as any golf score card turned in by William Jefferson Clinton. Any Christian who views TDC as a threat to his or her faith really doesn't have much faith to begin with. I think that it's quite interesting that author's J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter) and Dan Brown, a pair whose wealth dwarfs the inflation-adjusted net worth of William Shakespeare, generated their income by outright attacking Christianity or denying its existence and power altogether. Your Mr. Wonderful, being the the uneducated, hateful, fearful and fanatic Christian that he is, believes that, just like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Brown and Rowling, whether they realize it or not, have made a "Deal with the Devil." This is not to claim that millions of readers do not find their books entertaining, enchanting or enlightening, it's just my opinion that the Angel of Light delight$ whenever another person cracks open their books . . . and reads . . . and believes.