Why I dislike "The DaVinci Code"

[fleetfootmike]

ladyat left her copy here after our BBQ last summer, and (being short of things to read) I picked it up.

I have to say, and I'm aware this may place me in a minority, that I found the author annoying in the extreme, even beyond the fact that he clearly Has Personal Issues with the Catholic church.

Specifically, I find him guilty of being dishonest with the reader: he places you, the reader, in a character's head, and privy to their innermost thoughts, for the duration of a chapter. Right up to the point where they see something horrifying, dramatic, important, at the end of a chapter. At which point he suddenly stops allowing you that insight, for what to my mind is a cheap attempt at suspense, and switches viewpoint character for a dozen pages.

Repeatedly.

To my mind, this is, as I said, being dishonest with the reader: offering something (the intimacy with the character's thoughts), and then taking it away again to play with the reader's emotions.