The Da Vinci Code debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and generated high praise from many critics for its entertainment value. Reviewing the novel for the New York Times, Janet Maslin declares, "In this gleefully erudite suspense novel, Mr. Brown takes the format he has been developing through three earlier novels and fine-tunes it to blockbuster proportion." On the other side of the Atlantic—and indeed, on the other side of the critical spectrum—Peter Millar writes in his review for the Times (London) that the novel "is without doubt, the silliest, most inaccurate, ill-informed, stereotype-driven, cloth-eared, cardboard-cutout-populated piece of pulp fiction that I have read." Whatever the reaction, reviewers most often took polarized views of the book initially. Whatever the reason, sales of the novel increased exponentially. As of 2005, the novel had been listed in the New York Times bestseller...