To suggest that The Da Vinci Code is a modern day publishing phenomenon is the grand champion of understatements! There can hardly be a reader of any nationality, any age or any reading persuasion who is not aware of a rough plot outline which is at once extraordinarily simple yet sweeping in scope and grandeur - nothing less than the continuing quest to find The Holy Grail! Jacques Saunière, the chief curator of the Louvre and grand-master of the centuries old secret society, The Priory of Sion, has been found brutally murdered. His grand-daughter, cryptologist Sophie Neveu, and author/symbologist, Robert Langdon, follow an exciting and ingenious trail of clues intended to direct them to the final resting place of the real grail, the remains of Mary Magdalene. Bezu Fache, captain of the Central Directorate Judicial Police, is hard on their heels throughout the novel, believing them guilty of this murder plus the gruesome slaying of the three second level senechaux of the Priory's command structure.

The Da Vinci Code is fictional! But its runaway popularity seems based on the controversial interpretation of the history of the grail and all the surrounding issues - the Priory of Sion, the Knights Templar, the Freemasons, the contention that the Roman Catholic Church has been aggressively suppressing the truth for two centuries, the role of Mary Magdalene in the life of Jesus Christ and the interpretation of religious symbolism in art and architecture. Are Brown's interpretations of his research accurate? Is the history of the suppression of this information by the Roman Catholic Church correct? I'll leave that judgment to people who are much more clever than I. Suffice it to say that Brown has an extraordinary ability to weave historical background completely seamlessly into his story and make it just as gripping and compelling as the murder mystery itself! Witness this brief excerpt on the suppression of women:

"The Catholic Inquisiton published the book that arguably could be called the most blood-soaked publication in human history. Malleus Maleficarum - or The Witches' Hammer - indoctrinated the world to `the dangers of freethinking women' and instructed the clergy how to locate, torture, and destroy them. Those deemed `witches' by the Church included all female scholars, priestesses, gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and any women 'suspiciously attuned to the natural world.' Midwives also were killed for their heretical practice of using medical knowledge to ease the pain of childbirth - a suffering, the Church claimed, that was God's rightful punishment for Eve's partaking of the Apple of Knowledge, thus giving birth to the idea of Original Sin. During three hundred years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women."

The historical writing is exquisite! As a thriller, Brown has composed a taut, compelling, proverbial page-turner! And all that is accompanied by descriptive detail and character development that can stand proudly beside the output of any author that I'm familiar with. How about this description of the captain of CDJP?

"Captain Bezu Fache carried himself like an angry ox, with his wide shoulders thrown back and his chin tucked hard into his chest. His dark hair was slicked back with oil, accentuating an arrow-like widow's peak that divided his jutting brow and preceded him like the prow of a battleship. As he advanced, his dark eyes seemed to scorch the earth before him, radiating a fiery clarity that forecast his reputation for unblinking severity in all matters."

Unless you're a scholar and a medieval historian, don't try to judge it! Just go out and get a copy and read it!