Compared to the work of more competent practitioners of the art of the globe-hopping action/adventure/mystery novel - Michael Crichton comes to mind - "The Da Vinci Code" is pedestrian and overwrought.  
 
To summarize the sprawling, byzantine plot: warning - possible spoilers ahead - an elderly Louvre curator is murdered in the museum. Although shot in the chest, he manages to disrobe and surround himself with cryptographic clues - written in blood AND invisible ink (!) - to the reason for his death. His estranged granddaughter, who, coincidentally is a police inspector (!!) AND a cryptologist (!!!), enlists the aid of a visiting Harvard professor and symbologist (!!!!) in unraveling the multiple mysteries of:  
1. Her grandfather's death  
2. His role in an ancient, secret society  
3. The TRUTH (!!!!!) about the foundations of Christianity and the perfidy of Rome (!!!!!!)  
 
Although prolix, author and former schoolmaster Dan Brown fails to create adequate descriptions of people ("a forty-something academic"), or places (a chapel "engraved with a mind-boggling array of symbols...), or objects ("gossamer gowns" and "golden orbs"). After 450 some pages, the reader still has gotten few clues about matters so basic as the physical appearance of the principal characters - other than hair and eye color!  
 
Descriptions of places - the Louvre, Westminster Abbey - are lifeless, and read as if plagiarized from a do-it-yourself walking tour guide by one of the less gifted of the author's former prep school students:  
 
"London's ancient Temple Church was constructed entirely of Caen stone. A dramatic, circular edifice with a daunting facade, a central turret, and a protruding nave off one side, the church looked more like a military stronghold than a place of worship. Consecrated on the tenth of February in 1185 by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Temple Church survived eight centuries of political turmoil, the Great Fire of London, and the First World War, only to be heavily damaged by Luftwaffe incendiary bombs in 1940. After the war it was restored to its original, stark grandeur."  
 
Got it? February 10th, 1185; Heraclius; turmoil; fire; war; Luftwaffe; bombs;1940. These are factoids, NOT descriptive passages! What color is Caen stone? Are there windows? Stained glass? The smell of incense or centuries of candle wax? Pigeons in the rafters? Bats in the belfry? Brown isn't about to tell us!  
 
As to plot and character development - given the near absence of any meaningful interior monologues - characters blather at each other for page after page in stilted and unnatural prose. Langdon, the symbologist, speaks:  
 
"'...Every stone archway requires a central, wedge-shaped stone at the top which locks the pieces together and carries all the weight. This stone is, in an architectural sense, the key to the vault. In English we call it a keystone.' Langdon watched her eyes for any spark of recognition." (Perhaps they had understandably glazed over.)  
 
Unfortunately, isolated examples can't create the mind-numbing effect of page after page of this tedious bloviating.  
 
The success of the book must be attributed to the publisher's (Doubleday) unprecedented marketing effort. According to the New York Times, Doubleday distributed 10,000 advance copies of the book to booksellers and the media, and put Mr. Brown - who had never before sold more than a few thousand copies of his earlier efforts - on extended publicity road trips to trade shows and booksellers.  
 
If you're looking for an intellectually challenging mystery story, read or reread Eco's "The Name of the Rose", or "Foucault's Pendulum". For more vivid descriptions of people and places and events in an atmosphere of mystery, read Crichton, or Ian Fleming - or even Tom Clancy!  
 
For an example of how marketing hype can overcome critical judgment and influence popular taste, read "The Da Vinci Code".  
 
