First Lines Friday – 14/02/2025
This week’s First Lines Friday post is a week later than intended. I didn’t get around to drafting this post last week. Even now, it is comparatively late for me to be drafting this post for this week. It’s been a busy week of plans, but I have managed to make time to squeeze this in.
This week’s featured book is one I need to get my skates on and pick up soon. I have a deadline to pick this up later this month. Can you guess what it is based on what I’m reading this month?
Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.
As he had anticipated, a thundering iron gate fell nearby, barricading the entrance to the suite. The parquet floor shook. Far off, an alarm began to ring.
The curator lay a moment, gasping for breath, taking stock. I am still alive. He crawled out from under the canvas and scanned the cavernous space for somewhere to hide.
A voice spoke, chillingly close. ‘Do not 
move.’
The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 480
Audience: Adult
Publisher: Anchor
Publication Date: 18 Mar 2003
Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes.
As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, begin to sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo da Vinci – and suggests the answer to a mystery that stretches deep into the vault of history.
Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the pieces of the puzzle, a stunning historical truth will be lost forever…
My Thoughts…
Dan Brown and his The Da Vinci Code, amongst other books, are well-known names. I believe it’s rare to go into a charity shop and not trip over multiple copies of this book. Despite being well known, as of this first line is a Friday post, I have yet to pick up the book for myself. That needs to change soon. I will work book clubs are reviewing The Da Vinci Code in just a couple of weeks. So, I need to get my skates on.
Well, although I’ve never read this particular book before, I’m not going into a completely blind. I have watched a TV series based on this book. I can’t remember if I watched it to completion or not, but I certainly have an idea of the storyline from what I’ve seen on TV.
The great thing about book clubs is that you get a range of ideas and perspectives from chatting about the chosen book. I believe this book has some controversy around it, so I don’t know if that will feed into our conversation about the book or not. Before we get there though, I need to actually pick it up for myself!
That’s all for today’s First Lines Friday! Have you read any other books by Dan Brown, or The Da Vinci Code?
