The Da Vinci Clones

Sierra's narrator, Father Agostino Leyre, a former ecclesiastical inquisitor, is now a hermit living in exile in an Egyptian desert. In his old age, he seems a little cuddly for an inquisitor who once had the power to torture and kill anyone rash enough to argue with the Church, but he is now seeking to ease his conscience by leaving behind a full account of a story never told: of art, religion and murder, played out years before.

In January 1497, Father Agostino was sent to Milan by the Vatican to investigate accusations of heresy surfacing in anonymous, mysteriously encoded messages signed only "The Soothsayer." The messages included a Latin riddle that Agostino felt would identify the sender. He suspected the heretics might be descendants of the Cathars, a Gnostic sect that had threatened the very heart of Vatican rule a century earlier. For the Cathars, true faith meant establishing a direct relationship with God, without the need for the Church. Smelling a profound threat, Pope Innocent III ordered the massacre of more than 200 Cathars in 1244. The Vatican was prepared to go to any lengths to exterminate secret survivors.

When Agostino reaches Milan, mysterious murders occur, and he gains access to the incomplete mural of "The Last Supper" being painting by da Vinci. Here Sierra claims one advantage over Brown: The Secret Supper 's fictional decoding of the famous painting relies on details uncovered by the 10-year restoration completed in 1997. The apostle Peter was revealed to be holding a dagger, and Sierra claims that Leonardo portrayed himself as Judas Thaddeus (St. Jude). Tellingly, the Leonardo/apostle has his back turned to Jesus and is talking to Simon -- modeled, according to Sierra, from a bust of no less a skeptic than Plato. So "The Last Supper" being painted in the heart of a Milanese Catholic monastery is in effect a poster proclaiming a Christian church radically different from the church founded by St. Peter.

Hassinger's The Priest's Madonna is not well-served by comparison with The Secret Supper . She has carefully created a story based on an actual Catholic priest who served in the French village of Rennes-le-Château. Father Bérenger Saunière became mysteriously rich while serving his rural and impoverished parish. He also was rumored to have taken a mistress from the village, Marie Dénarnaud, to live with him in an ornate villa he built surrounded by landscaped gardens.

The adjective that springs uncomfortably to mind when reading this novel is "earnest." The life of the villagers is meticulously documented, but the mystery of the hidden tomb and the missing book that is to shake the Church to its foundations never becomes compelling.

The clear choice here for fans of religious conspiracy and reinterpretations of religious history is The Secret Supper . Its atmosphere of intrigue and the closed life of the monastery feel authentic, and the lonely old narrator in a desert cave is a good companion. His final explication of the secret message in da Vinci's "Last Supper" requires a good head for games (Sudoku and crossword skills will come in handy), but here's one hint: According to Sierra, Leonardo's painting clearly tells us that Judas Iscariot did not betray Jesus. ·

Brigitte Weeks is a former editor of Book World.