Mystery critic Jon Breen, writing in The Weekly Standard, has offered the best capsule description of Dan Brown’s megaselling novel The Da Vinci Code I’ve ever read. Noting that it is inaccurate to describe the book as a new kind of "thriller," Breen disposes of it as follows:
Dan Brown’s novel works best as an old-fashioned clued detective puzzle, albeit an unusually badly written one.
Perfect.
A gal would have to be pretty darn good-looking to overcome that, in my opinion….
I think your description of internet dating as being like looking for a used car is vivid and sounds very true.
Several years ago, I did a brief foray into internet dating, which ultimately reminded me of searching for a used car. Anyway, almost all of the women who indicated that they were avid readers said that the last book they read was TDVC, which was profoundly depressing.
Carl, I defer to your authority on the subject. It appears that you and Jon agree that the interesting thing about TVDC is how ordinary, unoriginal, and ineptly executed it is behind its controversial subject matter. And on that I wholeheartedly agree with you both.
Sam: That description only goes so far, and I would argue that it isn’t entirely accurate, or, better, is incomplete. The plot, writing, and approach of TDVC are very much in keeping with the standard plot, writing, and approach (not to mention settings and characters) that are found in romance novels, as Sandra Miesel and I explain in The Da Vinci Hoax. Part of the strange allure of TDVC is that many readers seem to believe it is filled with esoteric, edgy material, yet they find comfort in its standard, run-of-the-mill romance novel/detective thriller-lite approach. Could this be why the vast majority of TDVC readers are female?