Readers who enjoy mystery novels, with each chapter introducing new and greater perils, will find The Da Vinci Code hard to put down. Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of religious symbolism, and Sophie Neveu, granddaughter of the curator of the Louvre Museum in Paris, meet late one night where the curator has just been murdered. Langdon is accused of the murder, but they both escape the French police to follow the coded message Sophie’s grandfather has left concerning the Holy Grail and its secret.

But the conflict of the novel is not so much about the police finding the true murderer, as it is about who will find the Holy Grail. The Catholic Church, and especially their group known as Opus Dei, want the Grail so as to protect their interpretation of the Bible and the story of Jesus Christ. The Priory of Sion, a group which over the centuries has had such members as Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and finally Jacques Sauniere, the murdered curator, have possession of the Grail and the documents which expose the Church’s misleading portrayal of Jesus Christ.

Da Vinci himself, who "...incorporated in many of his Christian paintings hidden symbolism that was anything but Christian..." had nothing but contempt for the church. It professed the dangers of thinking women, and in order to keep man and the church superior, killed off millions of women as "witches." It was to their benefit that sex be called the original sin and that Mary Magdalene be denounced as a prostitute.

In a sense, Brown’s novel only uses Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu to reveal the endless struggle between certain Catholic groups, and the Priory of Sion, over the Holy Grail and its secrets. The question of whether Jesus Christ was the divine son of God, or just another mortal human being, becomes important. And if Jesus actually married Mary Magdalene and fathered a child by her, that alone would upset all of today’s Christianity.

The antagonists in the novel who would kill to get the Holy Grail include the Teacher, his servant Remy, a rich Catholic Bishop, and a Catholic albino, who does the dirty work but enjoys physical pain, as a reminder of Christ’s suffering.

What makes Dan Brown’s mystery novel unique is his informative subject matter and its significance in the world today. The Da Vinci Code was published in 2003.