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Nothing more than fiction First of all, in regards to all the hype surrounding the 'revelations' in Brown's book all I have to say is: It's fiction, folks!! Nothing more than light entertainment. He may use actual works of art and architecture, but the rest is fantasy. Even the supposed historical tidbits aren't very well researched at all (i.e. his book says the Knights Templar were executed by the Pope when it was actually France's King Philip the Fair who had them arrested, charged and killed). As far as fiction goes, it's a fun piece of fluff; a good way to kill some time on that 10 hour flight to Europe or in your doctor's waiting room. But after having read both this book and Angels & Demons (the stories are practically identical in a didn't-I-already-read-this kind of way), I feel like Mr. Brown severely underestimates the intelligence of his readers. He announces every moment of foreshadow. His attempts to build suspense remind me of a father embellishing scary stories to his young kids by making "oooo" noises while making monster faces and stomping around the house with his arms over his head like some sort of ghoulish gorilla. He has to drag out the revelation of each clue which can be annoying when you've already figured it out, but you still have another 2-3 pages of "oh, what could it be" to go through. And he has a tendency to go off on random tangents that do nothing to enhance the story line (i.e. the entire why-I-wear-a-Mickey-Mouse-watch saga). I'm starting to get the idea, based on his writing style, that a conversation with him would go something like this: "Happy Birthday, Wendy. I've got something for you." "Wow. Thank you, Dan." "I've got it here in this bag. It's a surprise." "Oh. What is it?" "Boy, you are really going to be surprised when you see what it is." "OK." "Guess what it is?" "Um, can I have a hint?" "You told me last week that you were hoping to get this." "Oh yeah. A gift certificate to the spa. Is that what you got me?" "You are never going to guess what it is." "So it's not a gift certificate." "It's something that's really relaxing." "Besides a trip to the spa?" "It's a way to get really pampered on your birthday." "So no spa then..." "I can't wait to see the look on your face when you open it." "So, do I get to open it now or do I have to wait until later?" "No, you get to open it now." "Ok... Dan... Give me the bag, Dan. Are you going to give it to me or not?" "Alright, here it is. Aren't you excited?" "Actually, I'm starting to get a headache, Dan." "Well, here it is!!" "Oh. It is a gift certificate to the spa." "Yeah! Aren't you just astounded? I knew you'd never guess what it was." "Actually, I'd pretty much figured it out about 20 minutes ago. But thanks."