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Book Review of The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, Bk 2)

The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, Bk 2)
Tesstarosa avatar reviewed on + 151 more book reviews


The story opens with the murder of Jacques Sauniere, an elderly curator at the Louvre, who has left behind many clues that lead to who his murderer is. Of course, you have to be able to read the clues and the clues point to two people. One directly points to Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist in Paris, who is an expert on symbols. The other indirectly points to his estranged granddaughter Sophie Neveu, who he has essentially raised since the death of her parents when she was a child.

Robert Langdon was supposed to meet with Jacques Sauniere the evening before the discovery of Saunieres murder. That along with the cryptic and macabre message left by Sauniere leads the French police to believe Langdon is the killer. But, Saunieres granddaughter, Sophie, arrives at the Louvre and helps Langdon avoid arrest and together the two scour the city of Paris looking for the clues that will lead them to the real killer.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. Its very fast paced but I was surprised when I read the book to realize that the entire story takes place over the course of a roughly 24-hour period.

A few things kind of drove me nuts. One, if these two people can figure out obscure clues and hints you would think theyd know an armored vehicle has a tracking device. Especially when that armored vehicle is from a vault with the security levels the one they essentially stole it from did. Two, there is something that caused the estrangement between Sophie and her grandfather. Its constantly referred to but it takes forever for Brown to reveal what the thing is. And, what it turns out to be, doesnt seem to be that big of a deal especially since she just chose to not discuss the issue with her grandfather.

There are a lot of symbol references and I liked trying to figure them out. I did figure out one of the symbols before the characters in the book. Im pretty proud of myself for that.