From the front of the dustjacket:

'A.R.R.R. Roberts
writing as Don Brine

There's something fishy going on ...'

From the back of the dustjacket:

'In his own blood, the dying man had written a single sentence in splashy, red letters. It was very much a red letter statement:

THE CHATOLIC CURCH HAD ME MURDERED!

For long seconds Donglan stared at the mysterious message. 'That, Doctor Donglan,' said Tash, 'is why we have called you in at this time. That mysterious message.'

'It may,' said Robert, 'be an anagram.'

'We wondered about that,' said Tash. 'Can you decipher it?'

Donglan smiled. 'Of course. It is my speciality,' he said. He tried to add 'I am an anagram master', but instead said 'I amanana manna' and I am anamanna' and stopped.'

From the inside of the dustjacket (front):

Five utterly baffling mysteries that will change what you believe about the world. And fish. And the wisdom of ever reading another book:

* An eminent, renowned museum curator lies dead in his own gallery, with a three-foot cod stuffed down his throat ...

* A brilliant young man, a renowned anagrammatologist, good-looking, gsoh, own flat, good job, non-smoker, very high standards of personal hygiene, single, he's not gay, and he's not antisocial, he meets lots of women really, just nobody seems quite right ...

* A beautiful, renowned young French police cryptologist who studied for her cryptology degree at Royal Holloway* - a university without a department in cryptology ...

* A book full of rehashed conspiracy theory cods(Oh! My! God!)wallop becomes a global bestseller.

* Another book that should be called The Eda Vinci Cod gets called The Va Dinci Cod instead. An anagram is it? Err no.'

From the inside of the dustjacket (back):

'The true reasons for the success of Don Brine's books are a secret that not even the Knights Templar, the CIA or the Church of the Resplendent Latter Day Apostles Who came Down from Space to Smite the Liberals (Alabama) are privy to.

Less-than-interestingly if you transcribe Don Brine into the Cyrillic alphabet and read it in a mirror and then transcribe it back out of the Cyrillic it reads as a transliteration of the Hebrew for Adam Roberts. If you squint a bit.

Adam Roberts, get this, actually does teach at Royal Holloway. But not cryptology. Perhaps not even English.

*Hilariously, Royal Holloway has asked us to point out that every one is very excited by the Masters degree programmes in cryptology offered by their 'world leading' research centre in Information Security. Whatever that means.'

This is a hardcover edition from Orion, published in 2005, which was also the book's original year of publication.

I've read the original, and it sucked ass, so hopefully this satirical version is better ... we'll see ...

I bought this book at a flea market at Stenbråten elementary school in Oslo on Sunday, April 19th, 2009.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

I lent this to a friend ... but will get it back from him when he's read it as I think I want to read it myself too. Anything that makes fun of The Da Vinci Code interests me ... ;-)

Very entertaining!!

The book's back home with me. Will read it sooner or later. :-)

I've read this book now, a good long while ago ... think last year. o_O I am just the slowest journaller ever. But better late than never. This was an OK read, entertaining, but quickly forgotten. I think my friend that I lent it to liked it more than I did. It's a pretty lowbrow humor that they're aiming for here ... they're not out to be very clever. But of course how can any spoof of a book as stupid as The Da Vinci Code be clever. ;-) This was fun for the subway, but not anything I'd ever read twice. If you understand Norwegian, I'd recommend Madonna-gåten over this one, no question. But an entertaining easy read.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Released in the zone. Happy travels to the book and happy reading to the finder! :-)

Released in the zone. Thank you!! :-)

Rather charming, actually...