Besides the controversy generated in religious circles about this book and forthcoming film, there isn't particularly anything about the Da Vinci Code that makes it special. It lifts much of its material straight out of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and as a mystery it's quite average. I also liked Angels & Demons better than this book, but it nevertheless clinched for me the fact that Dan Brown is a hack writer. Yeah, the ending was crappy, but the way Brown kept on assuming his readers are IDIOTS and explaining everything long after such explanations were necessary was incredible frustrating. Definitely not great literature.
