Discover the truth behind the fictional bestseller The Da Vinci Code. In this book you will find all of the necessary information to unravel enigmas that have been researched by several generations...

• Jesus Christ as he appears in the Holy Bible - is he the real one?
• Jesus' relationship with Mary Magdelene and his descendants.
• What is the Priory of Sion?
• The Knights Templar and the search for the Holy Grail.. What secret did the Templars guard? And what does the Church have to say about it?
• Find out about Opus Dei...

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown offers an extremely appealing mix of conspiracy, fact and possibility which has set the world alight with speculation as to the truth of the many stories within the book.

Beyond the Da Vinci Code attempts to go through each of the mysteries within the original book and attempts to define each of them as true or false.

Well that's the theory anyway.

What this book does in fact is show the author up as being almost irresponsibly credulous. At times I caught myself thinking that this is a writer who should not be allowed near a publisher unless its for writing fantasy.

Its not so much the content of the book which I'm having difficulties with. Its the authority of the information. At one point, Chandelle offers four images of paintings. One is Christ, the next is the first Merovingian King, the next is his four sons and the last is a portrait of the last Merovingian King. This offering occurs at a point in the text where the author is attempting to prove the link between Christ and the Merovingians. The images show paintings of men who look sort of similar to each other. Trying to prove a link between men of a very different period through paintings is a tiny bit silly in my opinion.  

This book is aimed at people who are intrigued by The Da Vinci Code and want to investigate it further. Therefore, any book which purports to 'solve the mystery' as this one does, should really be presenting authorities confirming the claims that he makes.

There are good points to this book however. Chandelle presents a good discussion of the Gnostic Gospels and the associated non-biblical religious texts which are used through the Da Vinci Code. The index of the book is useful for organising thoughts and ideas you come to while reading it. Unfortunately, Beyond the Da Vinci Code leaves you with as many questions as you had when you started it. Even worse, they are the same questions, which is a tragedy when you think this book is presented as 'The Book That Solves the Mystery'.

I bought it as something to read on the bus home from work. It fulfilled its purpose, but only just. Might be worth a read if you dig right into the Da Vinci mysteries.