THE DA VINCI CODE by Dan Brown (2003, Hardcover)

Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon—the first was his 2000 novel Angels & Demons—The Da Vinci Code follows symbologist Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu after a murder in the Louvre Museum in Paris entangles them in a dispute between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus and Mary Magdalene having had a child together. The novel explores an alternative religious history, whose central plot point is that the Merovingian kings of France were descended from the bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, ideas derived from Clive Prince's The Templar Revelation (1997) and books by Margaret Starbird. The book also refers to The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982), although Brown stated that it was not used as research material. ISBN 0-385-50420-9 UPC 9780385504201 52495 Pictured as Shown Used Condition