The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown’s 2003 thriller *The Da Vinci Code* follows Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon after a curator is murdered inside the Louvre. Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu, the victim’s granddaughter, evade the French police and decode a trail of anagrams, mirror writing, and number sequences hidden in works by Leonardo da Vinci, including the *Mona Lisa* and *The Last Supper*. The chase centers on the Priory of Sion, a secret society supposedly guarding the Holy Grail, and its rival, Opus Dei, whose monk Silas commits the murders under orders from a mysterious “Teacher.” The plot’s distinctive framework is a claim that the Grail is not a cup but Mary Magdalene’s bloodline, descended from Jesus, a secret the Vatican allegedly suppressed. Langdon and Neveu piece together clues left by the curator, including a key behind a painting and a cryptex, a cylindrical password device, while pursued across Paris, London, and Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. Brown presents the conspiracy as fact in an opening “Fact” page and populates the book with real institutions and artworks, blurring history and invention. The novel’s short, cliffhanger-driven chapters and its blend of art history, religious controversy, and puzzles made it a global bestseller and a fixture of debates about faith and historical truth.