Dan Brown, the author who wrote the ground-breaking novel The Da Vinci Code, has fingers pointed at him by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, the authors of the 1982 non-fiction book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. The authors are suing Brown's publishing company, Random House, Inc. The claim is that Brown lifted facts from Holy Blood/Holy Grail and used them in his own novel without proper consent. MSNBC has more information on this. Personally, I think it's completely unmerited. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail contains disputed "facts," whereas The Da Vinci Code literally has almost no facts in it at all. Dan Brown sold the novel as factual when even he knew it wasn't completely true and factual. I think the authors of Holy Blood/Holy Grail are just jealous that The Da Vinci Code was more successful than their own book. I read Holy Blood/Holy Grail and found it to be extremely boring. The Da Vinci Code is engaging and you never want to put it down, and when it ends you wish it'd keep going.
By the way, the people sueing also had their books published by Random House. The publicity caused by the Da Vinci Code boosted sales of their books, so they should be grateful.
I read The Da Vinci Code, and love it. It's a novel, as in a story. It's based on fact though, that's what captures the reader's interest. You know that some part of this has to be true, so you want to keep reading until you find out what happens to Robert Langdon (main character). Great story. I bought Angels and Demons too, also a really good read.
I don't think the Da Vinci Code was extremely well written, the only real saving grace was the plot. Anyway, this'll probably turn into a book review thread now because Will and Justin have said all that can really be said on the topic at hand.