I guess it was because I enjoyed the Da Vinci Code, combined with the fact the the reviews bill this as the greatest challenger to it, that prompted my mother to buy me this book a while back, although it has taken me a while to actually getting around to reading it.

I enjoyed it a lot. As with the Da Vinci Code, I have a tendency to read it for what it is – a work of fiction – and try not to get caught up in the whole ‘but it’s a distortion of the truth theories’ – if I wanted to find out the facts behind the theories mentioned in any of these books I’d go and read non-fictional titles about them, but as it is, I just enjoy the storyline… Sorry.

Having read all four of the Dan Brown novels and enjoying them, I guess it was a reasonable assumption that I’d enjoy this, and I did. In honesty, I actually preferred it to the Da Vinci Code or any of the other Dan Brown novels I’d read – the story was more engrossing, a little bit more realistic (if that’s the right term) and with slightly more ordinary characters. Although perhaps half the reason I enjoyed it more is that I have only read this one of Bourne’s novels – by the end of the fourth Dan Brown novel I was noticing the same trends in all the stories – hopefully Bourne won’t fall into the same trap with his future novels.

However, as with Dan Brown’s novels, The Righteous Men did bring some interesting ‘real-life’ societies / beliefs to my attention that I didn’t know about and would like to read more about. The direction towards useful reading sources at the end of the novel definitely helps point me in the right direction. Find my Amazon wishlist if you want to buy me a gift…

Definitely worth a read, and very addictive once you start, but I don’t know how quickly I’d go back to read it again – just like with Brown’s novels. I think it needs a substantial break from it before going back and seeing if it gets any better second time around, which my guess is it won’t, and I don’t want it to disappoint!