Free Republic

It is somewhat ironic to see Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, sitting in a British court and defending himself against charges of plagiarism by the writers of a previous book about the Holy Grail. Ironic because both books are utter nonsense. Brown's defence against plagiarism is that his work is original. His defence against writing rubbish is that his book is fiction and he doesn't claim to be a historian. Problem is, that's not entirely true. Brown includes a "fact" section and slips in references to various non-fiction works throughout his book. As flawed as these...

Dan Brown clearly enjoys playing with legends, history, symbols and secrets. And readers' minds. In his best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code, Brown wove all these - real and imagined - into a breathless mystery about Christianity, Mary Magdalene and the Divine Feminine that has spawned an industry of de-coders eager to separate fact from fiction.     Now that he has turned his attention to the mysteries of Freemasonry, the centuries-old fraternal order, the new book also might deal with Mormonism.    But rather than announce the Da Vinci sequel in a news release, Brown embedded tantalizing clues to its subject...