The Da Vinci Code

THE DA VINCI CODE by DAN BROWN

Dan Brown’s mystery-thriller novel ‘The Da Vinci Code’ pits protagonist, Robert Langdon, a middle-aged professor of religious iconology at Harvard University, a symbologist, an expert puzzle solver and a genius among other things, against the shrewd antagonist, known only as ‘Teacher’  who is relentlessly searching for the ‘Holy Grail’ and aims to destroy Vatican Church forever.

Robert Langdon comes to Paris to lecture on his work, a routine affair but his routine is disturbed drastically when the police comes knocking at the door of his hotel room. They inform Robert that Sauniére, curator of Louvre museum, an acquaintance of Robert, has been found murdered at the museum and they need his assistance in deciphering a cryptic message left at the crime scene.

Unaware of the complication that he is himself the prime suspect in the murder, Robert agrees to police’s request and goes to museum where Sauniére’s dead body has been put on the display by the killer in the manner similar to one of the Da Vinci’s painting, Vitruvian Man.

Police captain Bezu Fache intends to get a confession out of the Robert by confronting him on the crime scene but police cryptographer, Sophie Neveu, who is also the granddaughter of Sauniére, warns Robert of Fache’s plan.

She understands that Sauniére wanted Robert to decrypt cryptic message and that Robert has nothing to do with her grandfather’s murder, a view that is not shared by her superiors.

Robert and Sophie join forces to uncover the diabolical plot behind  Sauniére’s murder, which lead them into dark corners of church, Priory of Sion – a secret organization, hunt for the holy grail, possibility of Jesus married to Mary Magdalene – one of the most eminent disciple of Jesus and ultimately to the hidden identity of witty antagonist, Teacher.

While police and a dangerous assassin is on Robert and Sophie’s trail, Robert keeps on solving one complicated puzzle after another to finally unearth a shocking truth that changes Sophie’s life forever.

The thrilling story of the novel revolves around the struggle of Robert and Sophie to uncover the truth, Church’s attempts to block them in their quest, difficult puzzles, ciphers and labyrinths, shady characters lurking in the dark, secret pagan groups and conspiracy theories.

Dan Brown has used historical events as the building blocks for setting the stage in present time to develop the fictional story as a fact in which boundaries of fiction and reality merge to create an addictive plot.

However, some may accuse Dan of misrepresenting the history but people tend to forget that it is fictional work meant for entertainment; it is not a course material to be taught at schools so it has to be historically correct. 

Moreover, some will be appalled by the alternative life history of Jesus Christ and the negative role in which Vatican Church has been presented in the novel, but it definitely deserves a reading for having a unique absorbing story.

To sum up the review, I can only say that ‘The Da Vinci Code’ is profanely captivating and deserves four out of five stars. 

    

     

    

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by STIEG LARSON

In this intriguing story, the plot unfolds around not one but two protagonists, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. 

Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative reporter is humiliated by media and sentenced to three months in prison when he loses a libel against a corrupt business tycoon. He is also rendered bankrupt due to the hefty fines and costs in damages, he has been ordered to pay.

Soon afterwards, he meets Henrik Vanger, the retired CEO of the multibillion Vanger Corporation. He asks Mikael to look into the disappearance of his great-niece Harriet Vanger who has been presumed dead.

In return, Henrik promises Mikael considerable amount of money and solid evidence of corruption against that corrupt business tycoon. With nothing more to lose, Mikael accepts this proposal.

Henrik informs that Harriet disappeared without a trace during a family meet at the Vanger estate on Hedeby Island some thirty-six years ago while the island was temporarily cut off from the main land because of a traffic accident, since then he had been looking for her. He also tells that each year on his birthday he receives a dried white flower of the same species that Harriet used to give him on his birthday. 

Henrik believes that the killer, who he suspects is one of his family members, does this to mock his loss.

With this information and some old public records, Mikael begins his investigation to stir a hornet’s nest.

During his course of investigation, Mikael stumbles upon Lisbeth Salander, a twisted mistrustful antisocial twenty-five years old woman with a troubled past, who works as a surveillance agent in a large security company but actually is more of a hacker – she is the girl with the dragon tattoo.

Mikael and Lisbeth form an uneasy alliance to look into the mysterious disappearance of Harriet and while exploring the dark secrets of Vanger family, they pick up the trail of a serial killer who has been preying on women for decades.

Unfortunately, for them, the diabolical killer also picks up their trail and resolves to add their names to his victim list in order to cover his tracks completely.

In this crime-mystery-thriller novel, Mr. Larson has constructed a brutal darkly absorbing story around the disappearance of a girl, sex crimes, incompetence and cowardice of investigative journalists, moral bankruptcy of public agencies, Nazism, and the fury of a scorned woman – the girl with the dragon tattoo.

Mr. Larson has explicitly used heinous crimes such as rape, molestation and even child abuse, particularly toward the females to show blatantly the dark ugly side of the human nature that unfortunately does exist.

What I most like about the novel is that the author has gone to a great length to develop the plausible back-stories of his characters, which makes them credible, almost real. Moreover, the action and events in the novel has been depicted blandly without any glitter, which makes the plot credible.

This is something, which one does not find usually in most of the novels these days and for that, I am giving it five out of five stars.

The Name Of The Rose

THE NAME OF THE ROSE by UMBERTO ECO

In this engrossing novel, the story is set in early 14^th century in Italy where church has the absolute authority. The new protectors of the faith, the fanatic inquisitors wield considerable power and freely use torture as a means of procuring false evidence to use in their kangaroo courts. 

The church has imposed censorship on every idea, statement and fact that is not in the sync of its preaching, and freethinking is highly injurious to health since burning of innocent people at stakes as witches and heretics is the norm of every day. 

Under these circumstances, the protagonist Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, a middle-aged monk with an open, analytical, inquisitive mind – a medieval avatar of Sherlock Holmes – arrives at Benedictine monastery in northern Italy with his young novice pupil Adso of Melk, to attend a theological conference.

As soon as they arrive, a young monk is found dead and thought to have committed suicide.

The abbot of the monastery entrusts William to look into the presumed suicide of the young monk. William soon finds a foul play in the death of the young monk and concludes it to be murder but before he could close this matter, other monks starts turning up dead in unexplainable mysterious ways, leading to dead ends and new clues to a deadly mystery.

To make matters worse, a hardcore inquisitor who shares a bitter history with William arrives at the monastery to investigate these deaths and he has his own plans to take care of William permanently.

Against all odds, William continues to investigate the baffling incidents with his pupil. Using his gifted talents for deduction and logic, he succeeds in uncovering the ancient secrets of the monastery. ‘The secrets’ which some men guard with their lives and would do anything including the murder to protect them.
   

In this historical murder mystery, Mr. Umberto has created a dead-set delicious story that rotates around the monastic life, religious beliefs, theological and political disputes,  rivalries between bishops and abbots, reformists and staunch clerics, coded manuscripts, secret symbols, plenty of suspects  and above all the ample numbers of murder that occur when you least expect them.

Being a period novel, the novel does exactly what is supposed to do as it transports the reader from modern times into 14^th century by vividly reflecting the life, political and social circumstances, hardships of the common masses, their fears, and corrupt practices of church prevalent in that era.

Though Mr. Umberto has used a monastery and church practices as the backdrop for the story, he has refrained from blasphemy unlike some of the contemporary authors. His main character, William, does not take lord’s name in vain or uses profane language; he often disregards the religious teachings or beliefs of his colleagues such as demonic possession in lieu of sound logic and other proofs but he is a man with faith in god.

The lengthy plot of the novel is a bit slow and boring in the beginning but when it picks up, it keeps you at your toes till the end and makes up to be a good read.  

For me, it worth four out of five stars.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER by PATRICK SŰSKIND

The story opens in the later years of the 17^th century France when the mother of the protagonist ‘Jean Baptiste Grenouille’ tries to ruthlessly kill him as soon as he is born for she is a habitual practitioner of infanticide.

However, Jean survives and his mother is caught. She is tried in court for multiple infanticides, found guilty, and then decapitated. Thus, Jean is rendered an orphan, as there is no mention of his father in the novel anywhere.

Jean is gifted with an unnatural acute sense of smell, which is almost superhuman, even better than the finest sniffer dogs, and as odd as that, he has no human scent of his own. 

Jean’s god gift becomes a curse for him, because for being different he is mistook for devil as a baby, ostracised by other kids at orphanage, and even subjected to discrimination at the hands of caretakers of the orphanage. 

Therefore, he grows up cold, unfeeling and unloved.

Jean’s curse is also the greatest joy of his life. His main hobby – that is an obsession – is to seek out every kind of smell, good or bad, and remember it forever. He has a mental library of all the smells he has ever come across and he often relies only on his sense of smell to walk around instead of using his eyesight.

Jean’s life is complacent, tasteless and purposeless until that fateful day when for the first time in his life, he smells the captivating scent of a beautiful virgin girl close to puberty. Jean feels a sudden exhilaration in his nerves due to her scent that amount to passion but Jean is unable to understand it, as he does not know love or affection.

Jean seeks out the girl and accidently kills her. Then strips her body naked, lays her on the ground and keeps on smelling her scent until it disappears due to her being dead.

Overwhelmed with her scent, Jean decides to become the greatest perfumer on earth in order to recreate the scent of the dead girl, which ultimately onsets the chain of murders that leaves 25 beautiful virgin girls end up as a perfume bottle.

In this audacious novel Mr. Patrick, never shy away from depicting nudity, profanity, violence, sexual situations and even orgies as he shows us the workings of the demented mind of a predatory serial killer with a non-sexual nature, obsessed only with scents.

The maddening plot of the novel has a mesmerizing appeal to it. You know that whatever is being told is impossible and even senseless but you keep reading it because it is so differently exciting.

This novel is not the usual mystery-thriller novel that most of us are accustomed as it encompasses several genres including mystery, horror, supernatural, erotica, and absurdity – I wish there was some other word to describe the last type of genre but there isn’t.

I am giving it only three out of five stars because this unorthodox novel is not a pure mystery but it deserves a place in the novel collection of every mystery novel lover.     

 

The Hound Of The Baskerville

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLE by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE  
                                                                     

No “Best Novel List” is accurate without the mention of “The Hound of The Baskerville”.

In this engaging classic novel the legendary Sherlock Holmes – who doesn’t need any introduction – and his stalwart partner, Dr. John Watson are at their best against a witty villain who is both dangerous and resourceful.

The story begins with what most of us mystery lovers love – a dead body. Baron Sir Charles Baskerville, a middle-aged man, is found dead with a ghastly expression on his face, his dead body lying among some trees on the grounds of his own country house, Baskerville House, located near Dartmoor at Devon – a land infested with peculiar mires and giant bogs.

Even more mysterious than the death of Sir Charles is the myth surrounding his death; the myth speaks of a family curse on Baskervilles, according to which all of the Baskervilles will be punished by a demonic dog for the ill deeds of their predecessor, Sir Hugo Baskerville, who was regarded as the epitome of vileness and debauchery in his time.

To make matters more curious, the footprints of a humungous hound has been discovered near the dead body of Sir Charles.

Fearing for the life of Sir Charles’s nephew and only known heir, Henry Baskerville, a vibrant young man who now could be the next potential victim of the hellhound, Dr. James Mortimer, a family friend of Baskervilles, seeks Holmes’s help.

Intrigued by the complexity of the case and the foreboding circumstances surrounding it, Sherlock Holmes decides to take the case which leads him into the grand mansion to ominous Dartmoor, into the lives of elite social class to lives of servant class and ultimately to the hidden secrets of Baskerville family itself.

In this detective novel, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has set an eerie stage against the backdrop of folklore and precarious landscape of Dartmoor, Devon – where his most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes  solves the most baffling yet intriguing case of his career.

The threatening atmosphere, the confusing events and their logical explanation by Sherlock Holmes – that is a trademark of his novels – makes up to be a story, which is both intellectually and appreciatively satisfying. Moreover, it sets the perfect stage for the final showdown between Sherlock Holmes and nemesis of Baskerville family – the diabolical antagonist with his hellhound.

The gripping plot of the novel is throughout haunted by the presence of the ghostly hound that makes it both exciting and compelling to read. Moreover, Sir Arthur’s wicked sense of timing, abundance of suspects who may possibly turn out to be next dead body and the presence of charismatic Sherlock Holmes with his keen eyes, acute intelligence and super sense of deduction, makes this novel a treat to read that demands five out of five stars.       

  

And Then There Were None

AND THEN THERE WERE NONE by AGATHA CHRISTIE

With over 100 million copies sold worldwide, Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” {Also known as Ten Little Indians} novel is regarded as the best mystery-thriller novel of all times. Translated into many languages, adapted into several films, everything has been said and written about this masterpiece but here is my version of it anyway.

Ten escapees from the law of the land, who are directly or indirectly responsible for the death of other persons are conned into coming onto an isolated inhibited ‘Soldier Island’ that has a grand mansion as the only sign of human civilization.

Sooner than later: a gramophone announces their sins – or put formally their crimes – and then informs them that they have been brought to the island for the sole purpose of being punished for those crimes.

With no means of escaping the island and with death looping over their heads, the guests race against time to save their lives but then the cycle of gruesome murders begins. One after the other, a guest is killed in a manner paralleling, inevitably and sometimes bizarrely copying the methods of death depicted in the old nursery rhyme, ‘Ten Little Indians’.

Soon the surviving guests realize that the killer is one among them and then the hunt for the diabolical murderer begins.  

The ingenious artificial plot of the story is an unbelievable tall story but it is so incredibly fascinating that it ensnares the reader.

With abundance of murders: twists and turns: surprising outcomes: complex characters: creepy scenarios: baffling events: remorseless pitted against guilt: self preservation pitted against sacrifice: compassion pitted against callousness: bravery pitted against cowardice and the ever elusive sinister mastermind villain with his twisted dark sense of humor, makes this heart pounding novel one of the best work of literature ever produced, which deserves five out of five stars.

One must notice that I have refrained from mentioning as much about the plot or the novel’s story as I have done with other novel reviews because this novel is such a brilliant piece of work from beginning to the end that mentioning anything more may ruin the reader’s experience with this novel.

This is one of those novel that justifies the saying that proof of pudding is in eating – in this case in reading – and believe me the pudding is marvelous.