Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late night phone call while on business in Paris; the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum.Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes. As Langdon and a gifted french cryptologist, Sophie Neveu begin to work through the bizarre riddle, they are stunned to find a trail that leads back to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - and suggests the answer to a mystery that stretches deep into the vault of history.

Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the pieces of the puzzle, a stunning historical truth will be lost forever.

Robert Langdon is a Harvard professor specialising in symbology in history and art who receives a late night visit from the french police regarding the curator of the Louvre, who has just been murdered.

Going with the police to the Louvre, Langdon is catapulted into a mystery of codes, symbols, religious intrigue and murder, which he can only solve with the help of beautiful french cryptologist Sophie Neveu - who also has some discoveries about herself which could rock the world and shake the foundations of thousands of years of religion.

So much has been written/said/postulated about The Da Vinci Code that you would have to have been living on Mars if you hadn't heard about it yet.

For a lot of people, that much exposure can be something of a turn off when it comes to looking for a book to read. You don't want to get involved in it, you don't want to be sucked into what must be so much PR. All I can say though, is don't let anything get in your way of reading this book.Take the story completely on its own, don't worry about the controversy and court cases revolving around it, just read the story, because as a story, it works.

The Da Vinci Code works so well because it includes such a lot of historical intrigue and interesting factoids right in the heart of a fairly fast paced story going from the Holy Land to France to Spain and England. Along the way, we meet homicidal monks, crusaders, artists and detectives.

The way Brown involves the reader is by challenging his/her perceptions and remembrances of famous pieces of art. For example, The Last Supper has 13 men in it doesn't it? Does it? Look again - after you have read the book.You must read this book, as I said above, take it on its own, away from the controversy and court action, just read it as a story and allow yourself to be challenged. Allow yourself to be drawn into the 'what ifs' and the 'but that means...'

Allow yourself to question. Read the book.