to life, and in particular discover the buried truth about his or her own true identity. In his many books, but particularly in this one, Dan Brown has been saying things people in our day want to hear so badly that they are prepared to swallow ridiculous and unhistorical proposals in large quantity as long as they get the worldview they want. In form, the book is a seemingly endless sequence of conspiracy theories, of the penetration of one secret after another. In substance, the plot hinges on