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The faithful have come down rather heavily on Brown for relying on sources that are at best “dubious” when he suggests that both Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were from royal lineage and married to each other; and that the Holy Grail is not a chalice but a symbol that alludes to the concept of Goddess, which was erased from the scriptures at some unspecified later date. Brown’s proposition that much of Christian precept and practice has been borrowed from the pagans too has not been taken to kindly. Obviously, Brown has tried to reinterpret certain legends. However, the two organizations pitted against each other in this novel are real, and their description has not been disputed. Opus Dei is a prelature of the Holy Cross and is a Catholic entity spread over about sixty countries. Similarly, the Priori of Sion is a secretive society that has had several famous personalities as its members, viz., the Florentine Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo Da Vinci and Sir Isaac Newton among others.

This is one of those books that can be read at several levels. You can read it as a whodunit to while away your time at the airport, railway station or while waiting for your turn at the dentist’s. You can treat it as a literary tour de force and marvel at the simplicity of the language, the sophistication of the plot – not to mention the cerebral contents – and the manner in which various characters come alive on its pages. It is also possible to consider it as a rather brilliant attempt at research involving multi-disciplinary approach. Read it any which way you want to, this book is gonna linger in your memory for a long long time.

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