The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I found Angels & Demons, the first book in this series, to be much more engrossing than this book.  Which is surprising considering this was the one that had all the hype surrounding it.

About a year after he helped save the Vatican, Robert Langdon is embroiled in a mystery and a murder once again.  This time it is in Italy, where the curator of the Louvre has been murdered and strange symbology points to his killer.  The deceased's granddaughter is along for the ride too because clues that he left her say she should stick to Langon to solve his murder.  A strange monk is intent on finding them though and there are other mysterious players that would like to do anything to prevent Langdon from solving the clues left for him.

Sophie wasn't nearly as strong of a character as her predecessor.  She needed Langdon for almost everything; except for a few things she conveniently knew.  She didn't offer much in the way of dialogue either.  Langdon was little better.  He seemed less personable this time around and like events were outpacing him.  But at least he wasn't as "invincible" as he was in the first book.  I couldn't really care for any of the other characters too.  I predicted the bad guy pretty far in and wasn't surprised to see other characters do some of the actions that they did.  All were pretty predictable.

The plot I was pleased to see was done in a twenty-four hour format again.  I think this helps the book pacing, although this one was still a little long.  And I'm not going to comment on how accurate this book is except to say that it is a work of fiction and I read it as such.  If some of the stuff in it is true, that's great, but it has no bearing on my enjoyment of the book as a work of fiction.  I did find the symbology interesting, and liked the references to Da Vinci.  I thought the beginning offered an interesting premise and was a better lead-in than that of the first book, but the ending felt contrived and too easy.  Everything falling into place when life doesn't really work like that.

Not great, not terrible, not as special as I had been lead to believe.  It was entertaining, but I think it seems like this was a book that was written for tv.

The Da Vinci Code
Copyright 2003
454 pages

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown

Never watched the movies, this is my first experience reading any of Brown's books.  I don't understand all the hype or the controversy.  It was mildly entertaining, and the "clue" format was interesting, but it was nothing outstanding or deplorable in my eyes.

Robert Langdon is minding his own business when he is contacted by an official at CERN to come look at some evidence and a dead man.  Nevermind that Langdon is a professor, not law enforcement, his expertise is needed.  It looks to be the work of the Illuminati, a cult made of scientists who has a very big vendetta against the Catholic church.  Can Langdon solve the Illuminati riddle in time?  The very future of the Vatican depends on it.

The characters were mostly unbelievable in this.  They had too many powers, too easily overcame obstacles, and apparently had super-human strength and healing properties.  There is no way, after some of the things that Langdon went through, that he'd want to be walking let alone want to have sex (and that's all I'll say on that).  Vittoria was a shallow character that seemed to be there in an attempt to have a "strong" female character.  But she neither added much, nor was very strong on her own.  She relied on Langdon's character quite a bit.  And the character and personality changes in some of the others were hard to follow and made it seem as if they weren't even the same character at all.

If you ignored the poorly written characters, the plot was actually fast paced and kept your attention.  There was always some kind of action or gruesome scene to read and the clues and mysteries kept the reader engaged.  I also liked that the entire book took place in the space of a day, but didn't seem too rushed.  It was an impressive way of writing the story.  I can't comment on historical accuracies, etc.  I know nothing about the Illuminati or Catholic church history, etc.  I'm going to assume some is accurate and some is not, as seems to be the case with most fiction works.

Certainly entertaining but by no means a work of art.  I'll read the next in the series just because it is a good way to spend a rainy weekend.

Angels & Demons
Copyright 2000
569 pages