Back in the ’80s, the film critic John Simon devised a classification system that neatly explains why Woody Allen’s comedies charm disparate audiences. “A highbrow moviegoer can laugh,” Simon wrote, “a middlebrow, empathize; a lowbrow, gape, awestruck.” Something similar could be said about the appeal of Dan Brown’s novels. The highbrow can chuckle condescendingly at their supposed erudition. The middlebrow can engage with them in earnest. And the lowbrow can simply marvel. There is something for everyone.

Brown has occupied a curious place in American letters ever since his thriller The Da Vinci Code was published in 2003. The novel was intended to provoke, and provoke it did. It follows Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist (not a real job), as he uncovers an ancient conspiracy within the Catholic Church to suppress knowledge of Jesus Christ’s marriage to Mary Magdalene and of his children with her. Brown prefaced the novel with a declaration that everything contained within was based in fact. When challenged, he stuck to his story, even as the preponderance of evidence piled up against him. And why not? Fact or not, The Da Vinci Code was a global sensation. By 2016, the book had moved more than 80 million copies and had become one of the bestselling novels in American history.