Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #671833 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 745 pages

Customer Reviews

Fascinating and fun
Forget about the hype, will the suspension of your disbelief and enjoy this terrific page turner. Without spoiling the plot or the surprises it's about a Symbiologist (Robert Langdon) who is in France to meet the Curator of The Louvre Art Museum. But the meeting never takes place and there follows in the next few hundred pages an incredible eye-opening journey of discovery. He and a Cryptologist (Sophie Neveau) are on a chase to solve a puzzle left for them by The Curator. They don't know who the good guys/bad guys are, they don't know what's at the end of the puzzle and there are twists and turns all the way through. It reminds me of The Thirty-Nine Steps where you have an ordinary guy (okay, not ordinary but a non-cop/non-crook) just minding his own business and then suddenly caught up in international intrigue and murder and having to stay ahead of both the good guys and bad guys because he doesn't know who's on his side. The beginning, ending, and the ride in between are fantastic. The controversial aspects of the book concern Paganism and Catholicism and I'm sure there are many facts but also fallacies- this is fiction, but terrific fiction. It's nearly six hundred pages long and I read it in a weekend.

Loved this book!
I could not put this book down. And every time I had too, I couldn't wait to get back to where I left off. Because I didn't want to miss any details.
This book was great. It had all the things that make a great thriller of a novel -- a great plot, gripping details, intrigue, and it moved at a pace where it was comfortable enough for the reader to keep track of what was happening.
If you enjoy mystery novels of all kinds, and love a "Bourne Identity" type of plot, than this novel is an absolute must read. Your collection would be incomplete without it.

A FASCINATING AND INTRICATELY PLOTTED THRILLER...
For a while I resisted reading this book, thinking that it could not possibly be as good as its hype. Well, I was wrong. This is simply one terrific book that will keep the reader riveted to its pages until the very last one is turned. It is a very well-written, intricately plotted thriller in which a great number of esoteric historical facts and interesting theories of a religious nature are woven. Those who read it should, first and foremost, keep in mind that this book is simply a work of fiction.

All hell breaks loose when Jacques Sauniere, the elderly and revered curator of the Louvre, is murdered inside the museum. The crime scene and the body itself are laden with symbols and cryptic messages pointing to renowned Harvard symbologist, Robert Langdon. He is invited to the crime scene by the wily Captain Bezu Fache, of the Central Directorate Judicial Police, the French equivalent of our Federal Bureau of Investigation, ostensibly to assist the police. Little does Langdon know that he is, in fact, the prime suspect.

When he meets police cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, they join forces. They are then led on a merry chase by a series of riddles and ciphers that are ground in a historical context. They are always just one step of the French police, who seem determined to charge Langdon with the murder of Jacques Sauniere. During their voyage of discovery, Langdon and Sophie come across a secret society, the Priory of Sion, that has a startling list of former members, which list includes Leonardo Da Vinci, as well as the late Jacques Sauniere. There is also some interesting historical detail about the ancient Knights Templar, as well as Opus Dei, a conservative religious organization currently in existence.

Langdon and Sophie peel back layers of historical clues that point to a secret of such magnitude that some would kill for it. As Langdon and Sophie surreptitiously travel from France to England and seem to be headed closer to the heart of the mystery that they are trying to unravel, an unknown nemesis is closer to them than they would dare imagine. This unknown adversary is marshaling resources in order to obtain the long hidden secret that Langdon and Sophie appear to be on the brink of discovering. It is one that has the potential to have earth shattering implications.

This is a fast-paced, plot driven, rather than character driven, thriller. It hurls itself into the reader's consciousness at break-neck speed, and before the reader realizes it, the book holds the reader in its thrall: hook, line, and sinker. For those readers who love historical detail and unusual facts and coincidences, this is definitely a fascinating book that will hold their interest. It is a page-turning thriller in which nearly every chapter leaves the reader on the brink of a precipice. The book is written in clear, effortless prose, which makes the most esoteric historical details surprisingly easy to understand. Simple in its presentation but intricate in its plotting, it is no surprise that this book has become a runaway, international bestseller. Bravo!