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Formulaic, Manipulative and Entertaining. There is little left to say about a book that will likely sell more copies in a few years than most divine texts throughout their history. While I don't mind a little kicking against Rome from time to time, I must say that many a soul has gotten lost because of Brown's clever manipulation on the gray boundary between historic fact and religious fiction. In all, this book is a clever, yet formulaic whodunnit with a set of enticing riddles. According to my better half who bought this book and went ahead to read "Angels and Demons", it is embarrassing to see to what extent the author repackaged this precursor here, but I do not plan to read that book anyhow. Apart from the mystery, this book more than did its part in turning the eye of the public at large to the perhaps less than divine origins of Christianity. While it is too bad that such a big part of our populace appears to be so numbed by watching cheesy third rate sitcoms and obnoxious reality shows, that they regard some of the correct information in this book as shocking, Brown does deserve some credit for this awakening. While I liked the quality of the illustrations, I do have to comment that they provide an unintended line between the objects resulting from other people's imagination and figments of Brown's own. Too bad they threw me out of the Louvre when the guards spotted my jack hammer.