Looking for Leonardo

This is the land of Leonardo da Vinci — I’m speaking of Italy, of course — and the creator of the Mona Lisa (which is in Paris, not Florence) is in the headlines right now through his being the heart of Dan Brown’s best-selling novel “The da Vinci Code.” So I’m glad that I was able to finish the book before I arrived (last Friday).

Not, of course, that Brown is much of a stylist. His prose is wooden, his characters are about as deep as Pepsi Light is tasty and his sense of plotting has as much subtlety as Sammy Sosa’s ability at explanation (oh, right, it was a PRACTICE bat). But the novel does offer an intriguing and, for this modern age, an unusual look at religion. It particularly takes a fresh look at the sources of Christianity, the truth of which, charges Brown, has been hidden from generations of religious followers for reasons having nothing to do with life as Jesus himself saw it.

But if you decide pass on Brown’s book, here’s another summer-reading recommendation: You might try to pick up — as I did — a copy of James Ellroy’s novel “L.A. Confidential.” As a huge, sweeping, “Chinatown”-like study of 1950s Los Angeles, the book is much more than Curtis Hanson’s movie version, which stars Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce. It’s just the kind of beach book that most of us enjoy: readable, provocative and well-written.

Who knows? If da Vinci were alive today, maybe even he’d pick up a copy. In any event, he’d no doubt write his review in code.