In search of... a writing style

I finally got my hands on a copy of The Da Vinci Code a few days ago, courtesy of Suburban Public Library, and figured I might as well find out what all the fuss was about.

It's a fairly quick read, and the bite-sized chapters are eminently suitable for someone with a short attention span, or who, like me, has to fit their reading into scattered fifteen-minute chunks. The book is 454 pages long, with 106 chapters plus a prologue and an afterword; thus, the average chapter is just over four pages long. Considering that virtually every chapter ends with a cliffhanger of some kind, it's a breathless ride. Brown has mastered the time-honored storyteller's trick of giving out just enough information to tantalize the readers, but withholding the critical last piece at the last minute to keep them coming back for more. Sample chapter endings, chosen at random:

After a long wait, another man came one, his tone gruff and concerned. "Bishop, I am glad I finally reached you. You and I have much to discuss." (Chap. 59)

When Collet read the label above the empty peg, he knew he was in trouble. (Chap. 67)

Is there time?
He knew it didn't matter.
Withoug hesitation, Langdon broke into a sprint back toward the stairs. (Chap. 21)

Unfortunately, Brown's mastery of characterization is not quite up to his mastery of storytellers' shtick, and most of the characters never become more than two-dimensional cutouts who seem to exist mainly in order to pursue, be pursued, or inject Shocking Revelations and other useful info-dumps into the story.

The "shocking" historical/conspiratorial element of the story seems to be largely based on the 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail with a smattering of references to more academically respected sources like the fragmentary Gospel of Mary, topped off with a rather implausible series of purported secret meanings said to be embedded in the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. The way that the latter are brought into the story is even more implausible than the purported secret meanings themselves. The reader is asked to believe that a mortally wounded man, dying from a bullet to the gut, could, in the course of fifteen minutes, concieve, plan, and set up an elaborate intellectual treasure-hunt throughout the galleries of the Louvre, incorporating complicated cryptographic clues, obscure artistic references, private references only to be understood by certain members of his own family, and a generous helping of red herrings. And then, after removing his clothes and using his own blood to write a cryptic message and paint several arcane symbols on and around his body, arrange himself in a specific pose alluding to a well-known work of art before expiring. That's one very active dying man.

If one can swallow the implausibility of that opening gambit, though, the story is a fast-paced adventure tale, with large doses of entertaining intellectual and cultural gamesmanship, and it can be enjoyed on that basis. Its conspiratorial hypotheses are about as plausible, in detail, as Oliver Stone's movies, and yet it may serve a useful intellectual and historical purpose if it makes readers aware of the fact that religious dogmas, and even scriptures, have been shaped through the ages by political forces, and inspires more serious attention to the diversity of interpretations that existed in the early Christian church before the Emperor Constantine and the politically-established church at Rome imposed a single scriptural canon.

Addendum, 9/17: Lebanon has banned the book.