[Paracelsus]

I haven't read it but the research sounds interesting. Either way, I've put the results of The Da Vinci Code up because it's important to put up your not-quite or absolutely-not results as well. To my analysis, Code only broadly fits within the model. I'm not going to try and reason my way out of that one, or it might be I missed crucial stuff that would fit within those beats.

It might well be that Code was successful for other reasons; can't exclude anti-Catholic hatred and the fact the book puts women (who read a lot more than men do) front and centre of Christianity, more or less sidelining Christ himself and pronouncing Mary Magdalen of a royal bloodline and all that.

But I also can't deny Code is a successful book because it is sheer pace and page-turning. Every chapter ends on a cliffhanger, or tries to. It gets away with most of its historical bullshit because of the author's solemn foreword that "99% of everything in the book is true." Which it isn't, right down to basic geography, but you can't deny the book's pacing or the fact it is written with such apparent authority by Brown that it just whirls you with it.