Book Review: The Secret Supper by Javier Sierra

Frair Agostino Leyre, a Papal Inquisitor, is sent to Milan to confirm--or not--the messages of the "Soothsayer," who alleges that Leonardo Da Vinci is a heretic and has hidden heretical messages in his painting of The Last Supper. Leonardo is a figure larger than life, literally. A blue-eyed, tall, handsome man, always dressed in white, he is surrounded by faithful students and friends who are his acolytes. His brilliant mind, ranging over a multitude of ideas, has gained him a reputation for "hiding heterodox ideas in paintings apparently pious."

Review: The jury is still out on this one. While the story was intriguing and the secret of Da Vinci's Last Supper revealed on the final page was unexpected, the journey to the final destination was convulated and confusing. I am, however, willing to take some of the blame for this as I did not have nearly the grasp of Church history needed to breeze through this book easily; instead I struggled through it bit by bit determined to reach the end in order to learn the secret touted throughout the book. It was worth the work on this one as I did not see the secret being what it ended up being. The only real major problem I had with this novel is the same problem that I generally have with the historical fiction novels and that is the overload of information that most authors feel is needed in order to authenticate their novels. This can be overwhelming if you are not familiar with the time period and the subject matter.

However, this is not say that others should not read this book as much as it is a warning for anyone that is under the assumption that this book is light and fun like the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. It is not light and unless you really love historical fiction it's not a great deal of fun either (although the twists and turns in the plot were pretty fun because they were not easy to guess) but it is informative and interesting and I think, worth the read.

Plans: Going to lend it to a friend and then I will make it available.

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