Posted on: Sunday, March 20, 2005
Breaking 'Code' supremacy
By carol Memmott
USA Today
The phenomenal success of Dan Brown's religious thriller "The Da Vinci Code" has publishers trying to solve their own mystery: Is there a book out there that can match the popularity of a novel that has sold 18 million copies and has been on USA Today's Best-Selling Books list for the past 104 weeks?
Maybe, but any contender will need just the right mix of conspiracy and history, industry insiders say. "The industry is trying to distill that down to a specific formula," says Borders marketing chief Michael Spinozzi.
Among the titles given a chance of cracking the formula:
"The Geographer's Library" by Jon Fasman; Penguin, $24.95
A reporter delves into the death of a professor and gets mixed up with alchemy and a search for 14 cursed talismans. "Shades of Dan Brown," Kirkus Reviews says in a starred review.
"Improbable" by Adam Fawer; Morrow, $24.95, in stores
A compulsive gambler takes an experimental drug that induces visions of the past and future. Publishers Weekly says "Da Vinci" shows "plenty of readers enjoy their science as long as there's a compelling plot encircling it, which there is here."
"The Third Translation" by Matt Bondurant; Hyperion, $22.95, April
An Egyptologist attempts to solve one of the last great hieroglyphic mysteries. Amazon.com calls it the latest attempt "to capitalize on the amazing success of 'The Da Vinci Code' by positing an ancient mystery, contemporary scholars, rare documents, greedy collectors, and a quasi-academic protagonist."
"Map of Bones" by James Rollins; Morrow, $24.95, May
Ex-Special Forces soldiers search for bones of the biblical Magi stolen from a German cathedral. Borders' Spinozzi calls it 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' meets 'The Da Vinci Code.' "
"The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova; Little, Brown, $25.95, June release
A young woman seeks the truth about Vlad the Impaler, a medieval ruler and basis for the Dracula legend. The publisher is betting on a half-million-dollar publicity campaign.
