Best of the year: The Da Vinci Code

The paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci, the Knights Templar, secret societies, bizarre Catholic sects, the Holy Grail — yes, there was always going to be enough vaguely convincing pseudo-history and vaguely sinister conspiracy in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code to make it a best-seller.

But even Brown has said he's astonished by the public's apparently bottomless enthusiasm for his controversial, if utterly conventional, murder-mystery: it has been number one on the New Zealand bestseller list for months, sold 2.8 million paperbacks in Britain and 10 million hardcover in the States — and is about to be made into a film starring Tom Hanks. The ex-teacher has reputedly earned about $400 million from the book.

But if Brown's gift for an inventive plot — though his storytelling and character development are prosaic — has made him the equivalent of Peru's GDP, it has also earned him enemies. Three other authors have signalled they will take legal action for what they claim is Brown's plagiarism of their own, earlier works involving the arcane conspiracy at the centre of The Da Vinci Code.

None of this seems to have dissuaded either Brown or his publisher Random House from repackaging the suspensor as a hardback "Special Illustrated Collector's Edition" just in time for Christmas.

Certainly it is a handsome edition. And Brown buffs — and his first time readers — will undoubtedly find themselves terribly over-excited by the more than 150 beautifully printed images from the churches and landmarks strewn through the text to the many paintings the author alludes to.

An over-cooked mystery gets the over-egged dessert it deserves.