The Secret Supper, by Javier Sierra

Yet another novelist tries to ride Dan Brown's coat-tails to DaVinci-related fame ... and doesn't quite cut it, in my humble opinion. The novelist in this case is Spanish, and the novel is a translation into English, so perhaps it was the translation that didn't grab me. From a literary point of view, it's certainly no worse than The DaVinci Code, probably better -- but the one thing Dan Brown can do, shoddy research and all, is keep those pages turning, dragging even this reluctant reader along to the climax by the force of each chapter's cliffhanger ending.

I never even did figure out who all the characters were in The Secret Supper, and I found the novel's Leonardo unbelievable as an artist. The book never grabbed me -- instead of finding it impossible to put down, I kept forgetting to pick it up. If you're absolutely crazy for heresies and conspiracies, and enjoy a historical setting, you might want to give this a try -- but Dan Brown can sleep soundly on his million-dollar sheets for now. No serious competition here.