February 2004
Crime Time Reading
Two very different novels that have murder at their center
The Da Vinci Code****
By Dan Brown
Doubleday, 2003
Both an incredible thriller and an intelligent, informative voyage through history, Dan Brown’s latest novel is transfixing. The reader is ensnared by the author’s storytelling skills from the first page on.
During a business trip to Paris, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives a late-night phone call: the chief curator of the Louvre has been murdered, his naked body grotesquely positioned beneath the portrait of Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, leaving behind only the vaguest of clues. Together with Sophie Neveu, acclaimed French cryptologist and the late curator’s granddaughter, Langdon embarks on a dangerous quest to solve the mystery. It emerges that minutes before his death, the curator created a series of complex signs that only Neveu and Langdon understand, clues that not only form a link with hidden messages in the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, but also to the Priory of Sion—a secret society of which Sandro Botticelli, Victor Hugo, Isaac Newton and Leonardo himself were members. On a gripping chase through France and England, which takes our protagonists from churches to libraries and on to ancient crypts, the duo struggles to understand what the dead curator was trying to tell them—and to decode a powerful secret before it is lost forever: a secret whose discovery could alter widespread perceptions of Christianity. During the course of the novel, the reader progresses from exploring the subtle workings of Leonardo’s mind and the explosive secret of the Holy Grail, to becoming acquainted with the story behind the Knights Templar and the mysterious symbolism encountered in several of the most famous paintings and churches in the world. Though pedants may quibble about the historical veracity of Brown’s research, no one should let that spoil their enjoyment of the book. From stunning twists in the plot involving evil monks to a spellbinding interpretation of the Bible and Western history, the author’s narrative genius keeps the pages turning at lightning speed, catching the reader off guard straight through to the last line.
The Lovely Bones****
By Alice Sebold
Little Brown and Company, 2002
Susie Salmon is 14 years old when, after taking a shortcut through a cornfield, she is brutally raped and murdered by a neighbor. Now she is up in heaven, which looks similar to her high school and where she has a roommate and an “intake counselor” to help her adjust. Every wish she has is granted in her heaven: there are no teachers at her heavenly school and the textbooks are
Seventeen, Vogue and
Glamour. Only one desire, the most fervent of all, remains unfulfilled: to turn back time.
Yet, Susie is able to understand and cope with her own death; it is her family that must struggle to accept their misfortune. Susie’s murder shatters every idyll, every illusion. For days, her parents refuse to believe that their eldest daughter has been killed—until Detective Fenerman tells them a body part has been found. The book, however, scarcely deals with the murder itself, and though there are moments of mild suspense dotted throughout, the novel’s focus is on Susie’s family, on the personalities and motivations of its individual members. The reader follows each person’s life through the eyes of Susie herself, a narrator set apart and watching from above, able to read the thoughts and follow the activities of her family, friends and even her murderer. Her narration is calm and matter-of-fact, without any trace of anger or resentment. While each character is observed closely, Susie is particularly concerned with Lindsey, her younger sister, who is having the most difficult time accepting her loss. Instead of looking at Lindsey as an individual, friends and neighbors have taken to greeting her while actually seeing Susie’s ghost, a living version of “the murdered Salmon girl.” Soon she begins showering in the dark, just so that she doesn’t have to be reminded of Susie when she looks in the mirror. Susie watches helplessly as her parents’ relationship deteriorates and her father retreats into himself. She observes her little brother Buckley trying to understand the finality of death and how Ray Singh, her childhood love, with whom she had her first kiss, grows older and goes to medical school, the memory of her ever present in his mind. But Susie also sees good things happening. And although she feels great pangs of sadness that she is not able to enjoy a life on earth, the novel is neither sentimental nor depressing. Sebold writes fluidly and succinctly about pain and suffering—she herself was a rape victim—but also about love, happiness and human strength, and that is where this novel shines.
