The son of a Presidential Award winning math professor and of a professional sacred musician, Dan grew up surrounded by the paradoxical philosophies of science and religion. These complementary perspectives served as inspiration for his acclaimed novel Angels & Demons—a science vs. religion thriller set within a Swiss physics lab and Vatican City. Recently, he has begun work on a series of symbology thrillers featuring his popular protagonist Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of iconography and religious art. The upcoming series will include books set in Paris, London, and Washington D.C.
Dan’s wife Blythe—an art historian and painter—collaborates on his research and accompanies him on his frequent research trips, their latest to Paris, where they spent time in the Louvre for his thriller, The Da Vinci Code.
In its first week on sale, The Da Vinci Code achieved unprecedented success when it debuted at #1 on The New York Times Bestseller list, simultaneously topping bestseller lists at The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and San Francisco Chronicle. Later, the book hit #1 on every major bestseller list in the country. The Da Vinci Code is now being adapted for film by Columbia Pictures.
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. Solving 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…and 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. The Louvre curator has sacrificed his life to protect the Priory's most sacred trust: the location of a vastly important religious relic, hidden for centuries.
In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who appears to work for Opus Dei—a clandestine, Vatican-sanctioned Catholic sect believed to have long plotted to seize the Priory's secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's secret—and a stunning historical truth—will be lost forever.
In an exhilarating blend of relentless adventure, scholarly intrigue, and cutting wit, symbologist Robert Langdon (first introduced in Dan Brown's bestselling Angels & Demons) is the most original character to appear in years. “The Da Vinci Code” heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightening-paced, intelligent thriller…surprising at every twist, absorbing at every turn, and in the end, utterly unpredictable…right up to its astonishing conclusion.
The author uses a mysterious style of writing using a lot of italic font to show some of each characters thoughts to the reader for example when Robert Langdon gets a phone call it shows him thinking “You need a vacation, Robert” after he had put down the phone. He uses a lot of description and sets the scenes of the novel very well.
The main characters in the story are: Robert Langdon – the symbologist who helps Sophie Neveu break her Grandfathers Code. Sophie Neveu – she is a cryptographer who starts work with Bezu Fache (a police officer) to break her Grandfathers Code but then moves on to help Robert Langdon. Jacques Sauniere is a famous curator and is also Sophie’s Grandfather. Silas - a monk working for the “teacher”. Fache – the police officer (DCPJ – Direction, centre, police, judicial) who is working on the case of the murder or Jacques Sauniere. Aringarosa – the Bishop and Sir Leigh Teabing – Robert Langdon’s friend, also the “teacher”.
I think the target audience for this novel is from the age of 13 years old and above as any younger people may not understand the concept of the novel and the wide range of vocabulary used.
In conclusion I found this book very interesting because I enjoyed reading about the different methods that Robert and Sophie used to work out the code left by Jacques the moment before he died and I wanted to know were the code was going to take them which made me read on and finish the novel.
Out of ten I would rate this book a ten because I found it enjoyable. I was hooked into the book after reading the first chapter and found the book intriguing. I would recommend it to any one above the age of 13 years old who enjoys reading Adventure stories and true stories.
By Hatice Giritli
Group 9
