Da Vinci Code 'copied book ideas'

A claim that Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code copied the ideas of two other authors has gone before London's High Court.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh say Mr Brown stole 'the whole architecture' of research that went into their 1982 book The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail.

Both books contain the idea Jesus had a child. They are suing publisher Random House, which denies the allegation.

I must admit to (a) having never read The Da Vinci Code and (b) having no idea what all the fuss was about with the central plot ideas (as I understood them to be). Y'see, I read The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail way back in the 1980's and so when another book appeared with essentially the same premise as a basis for its plot, it seemed to me to only be a 'knock-off' version. Seems the authors of that work thought the same.