Crime Scene: Reviews of Mysteries
Anyone that’s been to the movies has seen the smash hits that Dan Brown’s series of three books starring intrepid academic Robert Langdon have been made into. For those who haven’t it’s “Angels and Demons” and “The DaVinci Code” respectively. There’s a third book, “The Lost Symbol,” but let’s stick to the first two for now.
Both of these books are conspiracies, that’s what makes them fun. They’re plausible, if not precisely true, and it’s their very plausibility that has made so many people claim they might not be fiction. However, most of the facts presented are the facts of conspiracy theories, and there are more than enough wild inaccuracies to keep it in the realm of fiction. However, the other problem with these books is Brown’s style.
A good mystery, as with any good book, is built on making characters that you can identify with and who seem real. However, the first two books in the series and jammed to the gills with “Religion V. Science” rhetoric that is only extreme. Almost no characters believe there’s a happy medium, and those who do are promptly killed. It sort of eats away at the mystery when everyone is so petty.