The Da Vinci Code is one of the most annoying books movie pitches I have ever read. The (stupendously flat) characters bore each other, themselves and the poor unfortunate readers to death with their endless expositioning. It’s a sweet ‘n’ lo version of Foucault’s Pendulum.

Dan Brown’s writing reminds me of PG-13 fanfic and children’s literature. The hero of the story, a poor man’s Indiana Jones, is supposed to be a Harvard professor. He quotes from a copy of ‘My First Symbology’ with the depth of Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and runs around Paris with his very own Mary-Sue-type heroine encountering comic book villains left and right.

Whodunnit? By the end of the story I couldn’t care less. Dan, seriously, if you want to write fanfic, at least make it a hard R and let your heroes shag already.

That’ll teach me picking up a book with a cover that says “The Number One New York Times Bestseller”.